those endured by our Lord were of the most cruel kind. The scornful
ridicule of our Lord was universal; all sorts of men were unanimous in the
derisive laughter, and vied with each other in insulting him. Priests and
people, Jews and Gentiles, soldiers and civilians, all united in the general
scoff, and that at the time when he was prostrate in weakness and ready to
die. Which shall we wonder at the most, the cruelty of man or the love of
the bleeding Saviour? How can we ever complain of ridicule after this?
"They shoot out the lip, they shake the head." These were gestures of
contempt. Pouting, grinning, shaking of the head, thrusting out of the
tongue, and other modes of derision were endured by our patient Lord; men
made faces at him before whom angels vail their faces and adore. The basest
signs of disgrace which disdain could devise were maliciously cast at him.
They punned upon his prayers, they made matter for laughter of his
sufferings, and set him utterly at nought. Herbert sings of our Lord as
saying,—
"Shame tears my soul, my body many a wound;
Sharp nails pierce this, but sharper that confound;
Reproaches which are free, while I am bound.
Was ever grief like mine?"
Verse 8. "Saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let
him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him." Here the taunt is cruelly
aimed at the sufferer's faith in God, which is the tenderest point in a good
man's soul, the very apple of his eye. They must have learned the
diabolical art from Satan himself, for they made rare proficiency in it.
According to Matthew 27:39-44, there were five forms of taunt hurled at
the Lord Jesus; this special piece of mockery is probably mentioned in this
psalm because it is the most bitter of the whole; it has a biting, sarcastic
irony in it, which gives it a peculiar venom; it must have stung the Man of
Sorrows to the quick. When we are tormented in the same manner, let us
remember him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, and
we shall be comforted. On reading these verses one is ready, with Trapp, to
ask, Is this a prophecy or a history? for the description is so accurate.
We must not lose sight of the truth which was unwittingly uttered by the
Jewish scoffers. They themselves are witnesses that Jesus of Nazareth
trusted in God: why then was he permitted to perish? Jehovah had aforetime
delivered those who rolled their burdens upon him: why was this man
deserted? Oh that they had understood the answer! Note further, that their
ironical jest, "seeing he delighted in him," was true. The Lord did
delight in his dear Son, and when he was found in fashion as a man, and
became obedient unto death, he still was well pleased with him. Strange
mixture! Jehovah delights in him, and yet bruises him; is well pleased, and
yet slays him.
Verse 9. "But thou art he that took me out of the womb." Kindly
providence attends with the surgery of tenderness at every human birth; but
the Son of Man, who was marvelously begotten of the Holy Ghost, was in an
especial manner watched over by the Lord when brought forth by Mary. The
destitute state of Joseph and Mary, far away from friends and home, led them
to see the cherishing hand of God in the safe delivery of the mother, and
the happy birth of the child; that Child now fighting the great battle of
his life, uses the mercy of his nativity as an argument with God. Faith
finds weapons everywhere. He who wills to believe shall never lack reasons
for believing. "Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's
breasts." Was our Lord so early a believer? Was he one of those babes and
sucklings out of whose mouths strength is ordained? So it would seem; and
if so, what a plea for help! Early piety gives peculiar comfort in our
after trials, for surely he who loved us when we were children is too
faithful to cast us off in our riper years. Some give the text the sense of
"gave me cause to trust, by keeping me safely," and assuredly there was a
special providence which preserved our Lord's infant days from the fury of
Herod, the dangers of travelling, and the ills of poverty.
Verse 10. "I was cast upon thee from the womb." Into the Almighty arms
he was first received, as into those of a loving parent. This is a sweet
thought. God begins his care over us from the earliest hour. We are
dandled upon the knee of mercy, and cherished in the lap of goodness; our
cradle is canopied by divine love, and our first totterings are guided by
his care. "Thou art my God from my mother's belly." The psalm begins
with "My God, my God," and here, not only is the claim repeated, but its
early date is urged. Oh noble perseverance of faith, thus to continue
pleading with holy ingenuity of argument! Our birth was our weakest and
most perilous period of existence; if we were then secured by Omnipotent
tenderness, surely we have no cause to suspect that divine goodness will
fail us now. He who was our God when we left our mother, will be with us
till we return to mother earth, and will keep us from perishing in the belly
of hell.
Verses 11-21. The crucified Son of David continues to pour out his complaint and
prayer. We need much grace that while reading we may have fellowship with
his sufferings. May the blessed Spirit conduct us into a most clear and
affecting sight of our Redeemer's woes.
Verse 11. "Be not far from me." This is the petition for which he has
been using such varied and powerful pleas. His great woe was that God had
forsaken him, his great prayer is that he would be near him. A lively sense
of the divine presence is a mighty stay to the heart in times of distress.
"For trouble is near; for there is none to help." There are two "fors,"
as though faith gave a double knock at mercy's gate; that is a powerful
prayer which is full of holy reasons and thoughtful arguments. The nearness
of trouble is a weighty motive for divine help; this moves our heavenly
Father's heart, and brings down his helping hand. It is his glory to be our
very present help in trouble. Our Substitute had trouble in his inmost
heart, for he said, "the waters have come in, even unto my soul;" well might
he cry, "be not far from me." The absence of all other helpers is another
telling plea. In our Lord's case none either could or would help him, it
was needful that he should tread the winepress alone; yet was it a sore
aggravation to find that all his disciples had forsaken him, and lover and
friend were put far from him. There is an awfulness about absolute
friendlessness which is crushing to the human mind, for man was not made to
be alone, and is like a dismembered limb when he has to endure
heart-loneliness.
Verse 12. "Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset
me round." The mighty ones in the crowd are here marked by the tearful eye
of their victim. The priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees, rulers, and
captains bellowed round the cross like wild cattle, fed in the fat and
solitary pastures of Bashan, full of strength and fury; they stamped and
foamed around the innocent One, and longed to gore him to death with their
cruelties. Conceive of the Lord Jesus as a helpless, unarmed, naked man,
cast into the midst of a herd of infuriated wild bulls. They were brutal as
bulls, many, and strong, and the Rejected One was all alone, and bound naked
to the tree. His position throws great force into the earnest entreaty, "Be
not far from me."
Verse 13. "They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a
roaring lion." Like hungry cannibals they opened their blasphemous mouths
as if they were about to swallow the man whom they abhorred. They could not
vomit forth their anger fast enough through the ordinary aperture of their
mouths, and therefore set the doors of their lips wide open like those who
gape. Like roaring lions they howled out their fury, and longed to tear the
Saviour in pieces, as wild beasts raven over their prey. Our Lord's faith
must have passed through a most severe conflict while he found himself
abandoned to the tender mercies of the wicked, but he came off victorious by
prayer; the very dangers to which he was exposed being used to add
prevalence to his entreaties.
Verse 14. Turning from his enemies, our Lord describes his own personal
condition in language which should bring the tears into every loving eye.
"I am poured out like water." He was utterly spent, like water poured
upon the earth; his heart failed him, and had no more firmness in it than
running water, and his whole being was made a sacrifice, like a libation
poured out before the Lord. He had long been a fountain of tears; in
Gethsemane his heart welled over in sweat, and on the cross he gushed forth
with blood; he poured out his strength and spirit, so that he was reduced to
the most feeble and exhausted state. "All my bones are out of joint, " as
if distended upon a rack. Is it not most probable that the fastenings of
the hands and feet, and the jar occasioned by fixing the cross in the earth,
may have dislocated the bones of the Crucified One? If this is not
intended, we must refer the expression to that extreme weakness which would
occasion relaxation of the muscles and a general sense of parting asunder
throughout the whole system. "My heart is like wax; it is melted in the
midst of my bowels." Excessive debility and intense pain made his inmost
life to feel like wax melted in the heat. The Greek liturgy uses the
expression, "thine unknown sufferings," and well it may. The fire of
Almighty wrath would have consumed our souls for ever in hell; it was no
light work to bear as a substitute the heat of an anger so justly terrible.
Dr. Gill wisely observes, "if the heart of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, melted at it, what heart can endure, or hands be strong, when God
deals with them in his wrath?"
Verse 15. "My strength is dried up like a potsherd." Most complete
debility is here portrayed; Jesus likens himself to a broken piece of
earthenware, or an earthen pot, baked in the fire till the last particle of
moisture is driven out of the clay. No doubt a high degree of feverish
burning afflicted the body of our Lord. All his strength was dried up in
the tremendous flames of avenging justice, even as the paschal lamb was
roasted in the fire. "My tongue cleaveth to my jaws;" thirst and fever
fastened his tongue to his jaws. Dryness and a horrible clamminess
tormented his mouth, so that he could scarcely speak. "Thou hast brought
me into the dust of death;" so tormented in every single part as to feel
dissolved into separate atoms, and each atom full of misery; the full price
of our redemption was paid, and no part of the Surety's body or soul escaped
its share of agony. The words may set forth Jesus as having wrestled with
Death until he rolled into the dust with his antagonist. Behold the
humiliation of the Son of God! The Lord of Glory stoops to the dust of
death. Amid the mouldering relics of mortality Jesus condescends to lodge!
Bishop Mant's version of the two preceding verses is forcible and
accurate:—
"Pour'd forth like water is my frame;
My bones asunder start;
As wax that feels the searching flame,
Within me melts my heart.
My wither'd sinews shrink unstrung
Like potsherd dried and dead:
Cleaves to my jaws my burning tongue
The dust of death my bed."
Verse 16. We are to understand every item of this sad description as being
urged by the Lord Jesus as a plea for divine help; and this will give us a
high idea of his perseverance in prayer. "For dogs have compassed me."
Here he marks the more ignoble crowd, who, while less strong than their
brutal leaders, were not less ferocious, for there they were howling and
barking like unclean and hungry dogs. Hunters frequently surround their
game with a circle, and gradually encompass them with an ever-narrowing
ring of dogs and men. Such a picture is before us. In the centre stands,
not a panting stag, but a bleeding, fainting man, and around him are the
enraged and unpitying wretches who have hounded him to his doom. Here we
have the "hind of the morning" of whom the psalm so plaintively sings,
hunted by bloodhounds, all thirsting to devour him. The assembly of the