Psalm 13
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village Preacher
OCCASION. The Psalm cannot be referred to any especial event or
period in David's history. All attempts to find it a birthplace are
but guesses. It was, doubtless, more than once the language of that
much tried man of God, and is intended to express the feelings of the
people of God in those ever-returning trials which beset them. If the
reader has never yet found occasion to use the language of this brief
ode, he will do so ere long, if he be a man after the Lord's own
heart. We have been wont to call this the "How Long Psalm." We had
almost said the Howling Psalm, from the incessant repetition of the
cry "how long?"
DIVISION. This Psalm is very readily to be divided into three
parts: the question of anxiety, 1, 2; the cry of prayer, 3, 4; the
song of faith, 5, 6.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. "How long?" This question is repeated no less
than four times. It betokens very intense desire for deliverance, and
great anguish of heart. And what if there be some impatience mingled
therewith; is not this the more true a portrait of our own
experience? It is not easy to prevent desire from degenerating into
impatience. O for grace that, while we wait on God, we may be kept
from indulging a murmuring spirit! "How long?" Does not the
oft-repeated cry become a very HOWLING? And what if grief should find
no other means of utterance? Even then, God is not far from the voice
of our roaring; for he does not regard the music of our prayers, but
his own Spirit's work in them in exciting desire and inflaming the
affections.
"How long?" Ah! how long do
our
days appear when our soul is cast down within us!
"How wearily the moments seem to glide
O'er sadness! How the time
Delights to linger in its flight!"
Time flies with full-fledged wing in our summer days, but in our
winters he flutters painfully. A week within prison-walls is longer
than a month at liberty. Long sorrow seems to argue abounding
corruption; for the gold which is long in the fire must have had much
dross to be consumed, hence the question "how long?" may suggest deep
searching of heart. "How long wilt thou forget me?" Ah, David!
how like a fool thou talkest! Can God forget? Can Omniscience
fail in memory? Above all, can Jehovah's heart forget his own beloved
child? Ah! brethren, let us drive away the thought, and hear the
voice of our covenant God by the mouth of the prophet, "But Zion
said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a
woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget
thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy
walls are continually before me." "For ever?" Oh, dark
thought! It was surely bad enough to suspect a temporary
forgetfulness, but shall we ask the ungracious question, and imagine
that the Lord will for ever cast away his people? No, his anger may
endure for a night, but his love shall abide eternally. "How long
wilt thou hide thy face from me?" This is a far more rational
question, for God may hide his face, and yet he may remember still. A
hidden face is no sign of a forgetful heart. It is in love that his
face is turned away; yet to a real child of God, this hiding of his
Father's face is terrible and he will never be at ease until, once
more he hath his Father's smile.
Verse 2. "How long shall I take counsel, in my soul, having sorrow
in my heart daily?" There is in the original the idea of "laying
up" counsels in his heart, as if his devices had become innumerable
but unavailing. Herein we have often been like David, for we have
considered and reconsidered day after day, but have not discovered
the happy device by which to escape from our trouble. Such store is a
sad sore. Ruminating upon trouble is bitter work. Children fill their
mouths with bitterness when they rebelliously chew the pill which
they ought obediently to have taken at once. "How long shall my
enemy be exalted over me?" This is like wormwood in the gall, to
see the wicked enemy exulting while our soul is bowed down within us.
The laughter of a foe grates horribly on the ears of grief. For the
devil to make mirth of our misery is the last ounce of our complaint,
and quite breaks down our patience; therefore let us make it one
chief argument in our plea with mercy.
Thus the careful reader will remark that
the question "how long?" is put in four shapes. The writer's grief is
viewed, as it seems to be, as it is, as it affects himself within,
and his foes without. We are all prone to play most on the worst
string. We set up monumental stones over the graves of our joys, but
who thinks of erecting monuments of praise for mercies received? We
write four books of Lamentations and only one of Canticles, and are
far more at home in wailing out a Misere than in chanting a
Te Deum.
Verse 3. But now prayer lifteth up her voice, like the watchman who
proclaims the daybreak. Now will the tide turn, and the weeper shall
dry his eyes. The mercy-seat is the life of hope and the death of
despair. The gloomy thought of God's having forsaken him is still
upon the psalmist's soul, and he therefore cries, "Consider and
hear me." He remembers at once the root of his woe, and cries
aloud that it may be removed. The final absence of God is Tophet's
fire, and his temporary absence brings his people into the very
suburbs of hell. God is here entreated to see and hear,
that so he may be doubly moved to pity. What should we do if we had
no God to turn to in the hour of wretchedness?
Note the cry of faith, "O Lord
MY
God!" Is it not a very glorious fact that our interest in our
God is not destroyed by all our trials and sorrows? We may lose our
gourds, but not our God. The title-deed of heaven is not written in
the sand, but in eternal brass.
"Lighten mine eyes:" that is, let
the eye of my faith be clear, that I may see my God in the dark; let
my eye of watchfulness be wide open, lest I be entrapped, and let the
eye of my understanding be illuminated to see the right way. Perhaps,
too, here is an allusion to that cheering of the spirits so
frequently called the enlightening of the eyes because it causes the
face to brighten, and the eyes to sparkle. Well may we use the
prayer, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord!" for in many
respects we need the Holy Spirit's illuminating rays. "Lest I
sleep the sleep of death." Darkness engenders sleep, and
despondency is not slow in making the eyes heavy. From this faintness
and dimness of vision, caused by despair, there is but a step to the
iron sleep of death. David feared that his trials would end his life,
and he rightly uses his fear as an argument with God in prayer; for
deep distress has in it a kind of claim upon compassion, not a claim
of right, but a plea which has power with grace. Under the pressure
of heart sorrow, the psalmist does not look forward to the sleep of
death with hope and joy, as assured believers do, but he shrinks from
it with dread, from which we gather that bondage from fear of death
is no new thing.
Verse 4. Another plea is urged in the fourth verse, and it is one
which the tried believer may handle well when on his knees. We make
use of our arch-enemy for once, and compel him, like Samson, to grind
in our mill while we use his cruel arrogance as an argument in
prayer. It is not the Lord's will that the great enemy of our souls
should overcome his children. This would dishonour God, and cause the
evil one to boast. It is well for us that our salvation and God's
honour are so intimately connected, that they stand or fall
together.
Our covenant God will complete the
confusion of all our enemies, and if for awhile we become their scoff
and jest, the day is coming when the shame will change sides, and the
contempt shall be poured on those to whom it is due.
Verse 5. What a change is here! Lo, the rain is over and gone, and
the time of the singing of birds is come. The mercy-seat has so
refreshed the poor weeper, that he clears his throat for a song. If
we have mourned with him, let us now dance with him. David's heart
was more often out of tune than his harp, He begins many of his
psalms sighing, and ends them singing; and others he begins in joy
and ends in sorrow; "so that one would think," says Peter Moulin,
"that those Psalms had been composed by two men of a contrary
humour." It is worthy to be observed that the joy is all the greater
because of the previous sorrow, as calm is all the more delightful in
recollection of the preceding tempest.
"Sorrows remembered sweeten present
joy."
Here is his avowal of his confidence:
"But I have trusted in thy mercy." For many a year it had been
his wont to make the Lord his castle and tower of defence, and he
smiles from behind the same bulwark still. He is sure of his faith,
and his faith makes him sure; had he doubted the reality of his trust
in God, he would have blocked up one of the windows through which the
sun of heaven delights to shine. Faith is now in exercise, and
consequently is readily discovered; there is never a doubt in our
heart about the existence of faith while it is in action: when the
hare or partridge is quiet we see it not, but let the same be in
motion and we soon perceive it. All the powers of his enemies had not
driven the psalmist from his stronghold. As the shipwrecked mariner
clings to the mast, so did David cling to his faith; he neither could
nor would give up his confidence in the Lord his God. O that we may
profit by his example and hold by our faith as by our very life!
Now hearken to the music which faith
makes in his soul. The bells of the mind are all ringing, "My
heart shall rejoice in thy salvation." There is joy and feasting
within doors, for a glorious guest has come, and the fatted calf is
killed. Sweet is the music which sounds from the strings of the
heart. But this is not all; the voice joins itself in the
blessed work, and the tongue keeps tune with the soul, while the
writer declares, "I will sing unto the Lord."
"I will praise thee every day,
Now thine anger's past away;
Comfortable thoughts arise
From the bleeding sacrifice."
Verse 6. The Psalm closes with a sentence which is a refutation of
the charge of forgetfulness which David had uttered in the first
verse, "He hath dealt bountifully with me." So shall it be
with us if we wait awhile. The complaint which in our haste we utter
shall be joyfully retracted, and we shall witness that the Lord hath