Overpowered at the thought, his beloved daughter exclaimed, "Surely you do
not think there is any danger?" Calmly and beautifully he replied, "Danger,
my darling! Oh, do not use that word! There can be no danger to the
Christian, whatever may happen! All is right! All is well! God is love!
All is well! Everlastingly well! Everlastingly well!"
John Stevenson.
Verse 4. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil." What not fear then? Why, what friend is it that keeps
up your spirits, that bears you company in that black and dismal region? He
will soon tell you God was with him, and in those slippery ways he leaned
upon his staff, and these were the cordials that kept his heart from
fainting. I challenge all the gallants in the world, out of all their
merry, jovial clubs, to find such a company of merry, cheerful creatures as
the friends of God are. It is not the company of God, but the want of it,
that makes sad. Alas! you know not what their comforts be, and strangers
intermeddle not with their joy. You think they cannot be merry when their
countenance is so grave; but they are sure you cannot be truly merry when
you smile with a curse upon your souls. They know that he spoke that
sentence which could not be mistaken, "Even in laughter the heart is
sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness." Proverbs 14:13. Then
call your roaring, and your singing, and laughter, mirth; but the Spirit of
God calls it madness. Ecclesiastes 2:2. When a carnal man;s heart is ready
to die within him, and, with Nabal, to become like a stone, how cheerfully
then can those look that have God for their friend! Which of the valiant
ones of the world can outface death, look joyfully into eternity? Which of
them can hug a faggot, embrace the flames? This the saint can do, and more
too; for he can look infinite justice in the face with a cheerful heart; he
can hear of hell with joy and thankfulness; he can think of the day of
judgment with great delight and comfort. I again challenge all the world to
produce one out of all their merry companies, one that can do all this.
Come, muster up all your jovial blades together; call for your harps and
viols; add what you will to make the concert complete; bring in your richest
wines; come, lay your heads together, and study what may still add to your
comfort. Well, it is done? Now, come away, sinner, this night thy soul
must appear before God. Well now, what say you, man? What! doth your
courage fail you? Now call for your merry companions, and let them cheer
thy heart. Now call for a cup, a whore; never be daunted, man. Shall one
of thy courage quail, that could make a mock at the threatenings of the
Almighty God? What, so boon and jolly but now, and now down in the mouth!
Here's a sudden change indeed! Where are thy merry companions, I say again?
All fled? Where are thy darling pleasures? Have all forsaken thee? Why
shouldst thou be dejected; there's a poor man in rags that's smiling? What!
art thou quite bereft of all comfort? What's the matter? There's a
question with all my heart, to ask a man that must appear before God
to-morrow morning. Well, then, it seems your heart misgives you. What then
did you mean of talk of joys and pleasures? Are they all come to this?
Why, there stands one that now hath his heart as full of comfort as ever it
can hold, and the very thoughts of eternity, which do so daunt your soul,
raise his! And would you know the reason? He knows he is going to his
Friend; nay, his Friend bears him company through that dirty lane. Behold
how good and how pleasant a thing it is for God and the soul to dwell
together in unity! This it is to have God for a friend. "Oh blessed is the
soul that is in such a case; yea, blessed is the soul whose God is the
Lord." Psalm 144:15.
James Janeway.
Verse 4. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."
Any darkness is evil, but darkness and the shadow of death is the utmost
of evils. David put the worst of his case and the best of his faith when he
said, "Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil;" that is, in the greatest evil I will fear no evil. . . . Again,
to be under the shadow of a thing, is to be under the power of a thing. . . . Thus to be under the shadow of death, is to be so under the power or
reach of death, that death may take a man and seize upon him when it
pleaseth. "Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death," that is,
though I be so near death, that it seems to others death may catch me every
moment, though I be under so many appearances and probabilities of extreme
danger, that there appears an impossibility, in sense, to escape death,
"yet I will not fear."
Joseph Caryl.
Verse 4. "Valley of the shadow of death." A valley is a low place,
with mountains on either side. Enemies may be posted on those mountains to
shoot their arrows at the traveler, as ever was the case in the East; but he
must pass through it. The psalmist, however, said he would fear no evil,
not even the fiery darts of Satan, for the Lord was with him. The figure is
not primarily, as is sometimes supposed, our dying moments, though it will
beautifully bear that explanation; but it is the valley beset with enemies,
posted on the hills. David was not only protected in that valley, but even
in the presence of those enemies, his table was bountifully spread (verse
5). The Bedouin, at the present day often post themselves on the hills to
harass travellers, as they pass along the valleys.
John Gadsby.
Verse 4. "I will fear no evil." It hath been an ancient proverb, when
a man had done some great matter, he was said to have "plucked a lion by the
beard;" when a lion is dead, even to little children it hath been an easy
matter. As boys, when they see a bear, a lion, or a wolf dead in the
streets, they will pull off their hair, insult over them, and deal with them
as they please; they will trample upon their bodies, and do that unto them
being dead, which they durst not in the least measure venture upon whilst
they are alive. Such a thing is death, a furious beast, a ramping lion,
a devouring wolf, the helluo generis humani (eater up of mankind), yet
Christ hath laid him at his length, hath been the death of death, so that
God's children triumph over him, such as those refined ones in the ore of
the church, those martyrs of the primitive times, who cheerfully offered
themselves to the fire, and to the sword, and to all the violence of this
hungry beast; and have played upon him, scorned and derided him, by the
faith that they had in the life of Christ, who hath subdued him to himself.
1 Corinthians 15.
Martin Day, 1660.
Verse 4. "Though art with me." Do you know the sweetness, the
security, the strength of "Thou art with me"? When anticipating the
solemn hour of death, when the soul is ready to halt and ask, How shall it
then be? can you turn in soul-affection to your God and say, "There is
nothing in death to harm me, while thy love is left to me"? Can you say, "O
death, where is thy sting"? It is said, when a bee has left its sting in
any one, it has no more power to hurt. Death has left its sting in the
humanity of Christ, and has no more power to harm his child. Christ's
victory over the grave is his people's. "At that moment I am with you,"
whispers Christ; "the same arm you have proved strong and faithful all the
way up through the wilderness, which has never failed, though you have been
often forced to lean on it all your weakness." "On this arm," answers the
believer, " I feel at home; with soul confidence, I repose on my Beloved;
for he has supported through so many difficulties, from the contemplation of
which I shuddered. He has carried over so many depths, that I know his arm
to be the arm of love." How can that be dark, in which God's child is to
have the accomplishment of the longing desire of his life? How can it be
dark to come in contact with the light of life? It is "his rod," "his
staff;" therefore they "comfort." Prove him—prove him now, believer!
it is your privilege to do so. It will be precious to him to support your
weakness; prove that when weak, then are you strong; that you may be secure,
his strength shall be perfected in your perfect weakness. Omnipotent love
must fail before one of his sheep can perish; for, says Christ, "none shall
pluck my sheep out of my hand." "I and my Father are one;" therefore we may
boldly say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."
Viscountess Powerscourt.
Verse 4. "Thy rod." Of the virga pastoralis there are three uses:
—1. Numerare oves —to reckon up or count the sheep; and in this
sense they are said "to pass under the rod" (Leviticus 27:32), the shepherd
tells them one by one. And even so are the people of God called the rod of
his inheritance (Jeremiah 10:16), such as he takes special notice or account
of. And take the words in this sense— "Thy rod doth comfort me" —it
holds well; q.d. "Though I am in such eminent dangers by reason of evil
men, yet this is my comfort—I am not neglected of thee; thou dost not
suffer me to perish; thou takest notice of me; thou dost take and make an
account of me; thy special care looks after me." 2. Provocare oves: when
the sheep are negligent and remiss in following or driving, thew shepherd
doth, with his rod, put them on, quicken their pace. And in this sense also
David saith well, "Thy rod doth comfort me;" for it is a work which doth
breed much joy and comfort in the hearts of God's people, when God doth put
them out of a lazy, cold, formal walking, and doth, some way or other, cause
them to mend their pace, to grow more active and fervent in his service and
worship. 3. Revocare oves: the sheep sometimes are petulante
divagantes, idly and inconsiderately straying from the flock, grazing
alone, and wandering after other pastures, not considering the dangers which
attend them by such a separation and wandering; and, therefore, the shepherd
doth with his rod strike and fetch them in again, and so preserve them. In
this sense also David might well say, "Thy rod doth comfort me;" for it is
a great comfort that the Lord will not leave his sheep to the ways of
discomfort, but brings them off from sinful errings and wanderings, which
always do expose them to their greatest dangers and troubles. So that the
words do intimate a singular part of God's gubernation or careful providence
of his flock.
Obadiah Sedgwick.
Verse 4. "Rod and staff." The shepherd invariably carries a staff or
rod with him when he goes forth to feed his flock. It is often bent or
hooked at one end, which gave rise to the shepherd's crook in the hand of
the Christian bishop. With this staff he rules and guides the flock to
their green pastures, and defends them from their enemies. With it also he
corrects them when disobedient, and brings them back when wandering. This
staff is associated as inseparably with the shepherd as the goad is with the
ploughman.
W. M. Thomson.
Verse 4. The psalmist will trust, even though all be unknown. We find
him doing this in Psalm 23:4: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Here, surely, there is trust the
most complete. We dread the unknown far above anything that we can see; a
little noise in the dark will terrify, when even great dangers which are
visible do not affright: the unknown, with its mystery and uncertainty,
often fills the heart with anxiety, if not with foreboding and gloom. Here,
the psalmist takes the highest form of the unknown, the aspect which is most
terrible to man, and says, that even in the midst if it he will trust. What
could be so wholly beyond the reach of human experience or speculation, or
even imagination, as "the valley of the shadow of death," with all that
belonged to it? but the psalmist makes no reservation against it; he will
trust where he cannot see. How often are we terrified at the unknown; even
as the disciples were, "who feared as they entered the cloud;" how often is
the uncertainty of the future a harder trial to our faith than the pressure
of some present ill! Many dear children of God can trust him in all known
evils; but why those fears and forebodings, and sinkings of heart, if they
trust him equally for the unknown? How much, alas! do we fall short of
the true character of the children of God, in this matter of the unknown! A