"He on the wings of cherub rode sublime
On the crystalline sky."
John Milton.
Verse 10. When God comes to punish his foes and rescue his people,
nothing has ever surprised his friends or foes more than the admirable
swiftness with which he moves and acts: He flies "upon the wings of the
wind." — William S. Plumer.
Verse 10. Every circumstance that can add to the splendour of Jehovah's
descent upon his enemies is thrown into the narrative by the inspired poet.
It is not enough that the heavens should bend beneath him, and that clouds
of darkness should be seen rolling, in terrible majesty, under his feet;
cherubic legions also are the willing supporters of his throne, and swift as
air, he flies "upon the wings of the wind." Into this amazing scene the
awful appendages of the mercy-seat are introduced; on the bending heavens,
the cloudy chariot rides sublime, and the winds of heaven bear it
majestically along.— J. Morison.
Verse 12. "Coals of fire." The word signifies, living burning coals.
Where the lightning fell, it devoured all before it, and burned whatever it
touched into burning embers.— Samuel Chandler.
Verse 14. "Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them," etc. O
that you who are now strangers to God would but consider these things! O
that you would but think what this battle may be, where the combatants are
so unequal! Stand still, O sun, in the valley of Ajalon, till the Lord have
avenged him of his enemies! Muster yourselves, O ye stars, and fight in
your courses against those miserable sinners that have waged war against
their Maker; plant your mighty cannons, shoot down huge hailstones, arrows
of fire, and hot thunderbolts! Oh, how do the wounded fall! How many are
the slain of the Lord, multitudes in the Valley of Decision, for the day of
the Lord is terrible. Behold God's enemies falling by thousands, behold the
garments rolling in blood, hear the prancing of his terrible ones, the
mountains are covered with horses and chariots of fire. God's soldiers run
from one place to another with their flaming swords in their hands, armed
with the justice of God, jealousy, power, and indignation! Oh, the dreadful
slaughter that is made! Millions, millions fall; they are not able to
stand; not one of them can lift up his hand; their hearts fail them;
paleness and trembling hath seized upon the stoutest of them all. The bow
of the Lord is strong; from the blood of the slain, from the fat of the
mighty, the bow of the Lord turneth not back, the sword of the Almighty
returns not empty. How do the mighty ones fall in this battle! A hot
battle indeed, in which none escape! Who is he that cometh from Edom, with
dyed garments from Bozrah? He that is glorious in his apparel, and thy
garments like him that treadeth the wine fat? I have trodden the wine-press
alone, and of the people there was none with me. For I will tread them in
mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and I will bring down their
strength to the earth: the hand of the Lord shall be known, the power of the
mighty Jehovah shall be felt, and his indignation toward his enemies. For
behold he will come with fire and with chariots like a whirlwind, to render
his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire; for by fire and by
his sword will he plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be
many, and the saints shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men
that have transgressed against me. For their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.
Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible
tempest. This shall be the portion of their cup! This it is to fight
against God! This it is to defy the Lord of Hosts!— James Janeway.
Verse 14. "He shot out his lightnings." (Heb.) LXX astrapus
eplhyune. Falgura multiplicavit: Vulgate, and so all the versions. He
multiplied his thunderbolts; or, shot them out thick one after another; as
the word properly signifies.
(Heb.) And discomfited them, as we render the word; or
rather, as I think it should be translated, and melted them; namely, the
heavens.— Samuel Chandler.
Verse 14 ( last clause ). It is written, "destroyed them," because the
Holy Ghost would not so much as name, by the mouth of his prophet, the evil
spirits to whom he refers.— Euthymius Zigabenus (1125) quoted by J. M. Neale.
Verse 15. "The foundations of the world were discovered;" i.e., such
large and deep chasms, or apertures, were made by the violence of the
earthquake, as one might almost see the very foundations, or as Jonah calls
them, the bottoms, or rather, the extremities of the mountains, in the
bottom of the sea. Jonah 2:6.— Samuel Chandler.
Verse 15. The Lord interposed with the same notoriety of his presence, as
when the waters of the sea were driven back by a strong east wind, and the
deep turned into dry ground (Exodus 14:21, 22), to give the Israelites a
safe passage out of their thraldom, and to drown the Egyptians.— Henry Hammond.
Verse 16. "He sent from above," etc. He "sent" angels, or assistance
otherwise.— Matthew Poole.
Verse 16. He took." God's grasp cannot be broken. None can pluck his
chosen out of his hand.— William S. Plumer.
Verse 16. "Drew me out of many waters." This hath reference to Moses'
case, who was "drawn out of the water," and thereupon called Mosheh
(Exodus 2:10); that word Mashah is used here by David, and nowhere else in
Scripture. "Waters," signify troubles, and sometimes multitudes of
people. — H. Ainsworth.
Verse 18. "They prevented me in the day of my calamity;" i.e., came on
me suddenly, unawares, when I was unprovided and helpless, and must have
destroyed me had not God upheld and supported me when I was in danger of
perishing. God was to the psalmist (Heb.), for a staff to support him.
What the staff is to one that is ready to fall, the means of recovering and
preserving him; that was God to David in the time of his extremity. For he
several times preserved him from Saul, when he, David, thought his
destruction by him almost unavoidable. See 1 Samuel 23:26, 27.— Samuel Chandler.
Verse 18. "They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was
my stay." When Henry the Eighth had spoken and written bitterly against
Luther; said Luther, Tell the Henries, the bishops, the Turks, and the devil
himself, do what they can, we are the children of the kingdom, worshipping
of the true God, whom they, and such as they, spit upon and crucified. And
of the same spirit were many martyrs. Basil affirms of the primitive
saints, that they had so much courage and confidence in their sufferings,
that many of the heathen seeing their heroic zeal and constancy, turned
Christians.— Charles Bradbury.
Verse 20 "The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according
to the clearness of my hands hath he recompensed me." We must stand our
ground, and be stiff for ourselves against all misjudgings. It is good to
be zealously affected always in a good matter, whether it respects the glory
of God immediately and alone, or whether it respects the credit of our
brethren or our own. To desire to be famous in the world, and as those
giants in the old world (Genesis 6:4), men of renown, or, as the original
text hath it, men of name, is a very great vanity; but to protect and
preserve our good name is a great and necessary duty.— Joseph Caryl.
Verse 21 "I have not wickedly departed from my God;" that is, with a
purpose and resolution of heart to continue in a way of sinning; and that is
the property of sincerity. A man may indeed be overtaken and surprised by a
temptation, but it is not with a resolution to forsake God and to cleave
unto the sin, or rest in it. He will not sleep in it, spare it, or favour
it; that is, to do wickedly against God, to have a double heart and a double
eye; to look upon two objects, partly at God and partly at sin; so to keep
God, as to keep some sin also, as it is with all false-hearted men in the
world. They look not upon God alone, let them pretend to religion never so
much, yet they look not unto God alone, but upon something else together
with God; as Herod regarded John, but regarded his Herodias more; and the
young man in the gospel, comes to Christ, yet he looks after his estate; and
Judas followed Christ, yet looks after the bag; this is to depart wickedly
from God .— William Strong, 1650.
Verse 21 ( last clause ). Although a godly man may break a particular
commandment again and again against knowledge, yet his knowledge never
suffers him to go so far as to venture knowingly to break the covenant of
grace with God, and to depart from him; when he hath gone on so far in a sin
as he comes to apprehend he must break with God, and lose him if he goes any
further, this apprehension stays him, stops and brings him back again; he
may presumptuously venture (though seldom; and always to his cost) to commit
an act of sin against knowledge, because he may withal think, that by one
act the covenant is not broken, nor all friendship and love hazarded between
God and him, nor his interest in the state of grace, nor God, quite lost by
it, though he may well think he would be displeased with him; but if he
should begin to allow himself in it, and to continue to go on again and
again in it, then he knows the covenant would be broken, it cannot stand
with grace; and when this apprehension comes, and comes in strongly, he
cannot sin against it, for this were to cast away the Lord, and to depart
wickedly from him, now so he doth not. So David, though he sinned highly
and presumptuously, yet says he, "I have not departed wickedly from my
God;" that is, I have not so far departed from him as though I apprehended
I should utterly lose my interest in him, yet I would go on. No; for he is
my God, there lies the consideration that kept him from departing from him.
So Psalm 44:17, "We have not dealt falsely in thy covenant," says the church
there. Many acts of displeasing him may pass and be ventured, but if the
holy soul thinks that the covenant lay at stake, that he and God must
utterly part and break off, thus far he will never go.— Thomas Goodwin.
Verses 22, 23. An unsound soul will not take notice of such a precept as
opposeth his special sin; such a precept must go for a blank, which the soul
throws by, and will not think of, but as conscience now and then puts him in
mind of it, whether he will or no. But it is not so with a man in whom
sincerity is; that precept which doth most oppose that sin to which he is
most inclined, he labours to obey as well as any other. An unsound soul
sets so many of God's statutes before him, as rules to walk by, as suits
with himself and the times, and no more. Such precepts as oppose his
special corruptions, or displease the times, and so expose him to suffering,
these he baulks and puts away, as David here saith, and calls them as the
rotten Scribes and Pharisees were wont to do, "least commandments," small
things not to be regarded; which rottenness Christ took up roundly in those
ironical words, "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments,
shall be called the least in the kingdom of God." Godly sincerity makes no
difference of greatest and least between the precepts of God, but sets all
before a man as a rule to walk by, and makes the soul laborious to observe
all. "Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy
commandments." Psalm 119:6.— Nicholas Lockyer, 1649.
Verse 23. "I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine
iniquity. " He who says, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is
written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my
heart;" and who by the apostle in the tenth chapter of the epistle to the
Hebrews, is identified with Jesus Christ, says also (verse 12), "innumerable
evils have compassed me about; mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so
that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of mine head;
therefore mine heart faileth me;" and in the forty-first psalm, "He whose
familiar friend, to whom he had committed a trust, who ate of his bread,
lifted up his heel against him," whom our Lord in the thirteenth chapter of
the gospel of John identifies with himself, says (verse 4), "Lord, be
merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned;" I am guilty "before thee."
The difficulty is removed by the undoubtedly true principle—the
principle which, above all others, gives Christianity its peculiar
character—"He who knew no sin, was made sin;" "On his righteous servant, Jehovah