sundry people, wrote upon the temple of Apollo Pythius, instead of
the Iliads of Homer, or songs of Pindarus (large and tiring
discourses), short sentences and memoratives, as, Know thyself,
Use moderation, Beware of suretyship , and the like; and doubtless
though every creature in the world, whereof we have use, be a
treatise and narration unto us of the goodness of God, and we might
weary our flesh, and spend our days in writing books of that
inexplicable subject, yet this short apothegm of Jonah comprehendeth
all the rest, and standeth at the end of the song, as the altars and
stones that the patriarch set up at the parting of the ways, to give
knowledge to the after-world by what means he was delivered. I would
it were daily preached in our temples, sung in our streets, written
upon our door-posts, painted upon our walls, or rather cut with an
adamant claw upon the tables of our hearts, that we might never
forget salvation to be the Lord's. We have need of such remembrances
to keep us in practise of revolving the mercies of God. For nothing
decayeth sooner than love; nihil facilius quam amar putrescit .
And of all the powers of the soul, memory is most delicate, tender
and brittle, and first waxeth old, memoria delicata, tenera,
fragilis, in quam primum senectus incurrit; and of all the
apprehensions of memory, first benefit, primum senescit
beneficium . John King's Commentary on Jonah, 1594.
Verse 8. "Thy blessing is upon thy people." The saints
are not only blessed when they are comprehensors, but while they are
viators. They are blessed before they are crowned. This seems a
paradox to flesh and blood: what, reproached and maligned, yet
blessed! A man that looks upon the children of God with a carnal eye,
and sees how they are afflicted, and like the ship in the gospel,
which was covered with waves (Matthew 8:24), would think they were
far from blessedness. Paul brings a catalogue of his sufferings (2
Corinthians 11:24-26), "Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I
stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck," etc. And those Christians of
the first magnitude, of whom the world was not worthy, "Had trials of
cruel mockings and scourgings, they were sawn asunder, they were
slain with the sword." Hebrews 11:36, 37. What! and were all these
during the time of their sufferings blessed? A carnal man would
think, if this be to be blessed, God deliver him from it. But,
however sense would give their vote, our Saviour Christ pronounceth
the godly man blessed; though a mourner, though a martyr, yet
blessed. Job on the dunghill was blessed Job. The saints are blessed
when they are cursed. Shimei did curse David (2 Samuel 16:5), "He
came forth and cursed him;" yet when he was cursed David he was
blessed David. The saints though they are bruised, yet they are
blessed. Not only they shall be blessed, but they are so. Psalm
119:1. "Blessed are the undefiled." Psalm 3:8. "Thy blessing is
upon thy people." Thomas Watson.
As a curious instance of Luther's dogmatical
interpretations we give very considerable extracts from his rendering
of this Psalm without in any degree endorsing them. C. H.
S.
Whole Psalm . That the meaning of this Psalm is not historical,
is manifest from many particulars, which militate against its being
so understood. And first of all, there is this which the blessed
Augustine has remarked; that the words, "I laid me down to sleep and
took my rest," seem to be the words of Christ rising from the dead.
And then that there is at the end the blessing of God pronounced upon
the people, which manifestly belongs to the whole church. Hence, the
blessed Augustine interprets the Psalm in a threefold way; first,
concerning Christ the head; secondly, concerning the whole of Christ,
that is, Christ and his church, the head and the body; and thirdly,
figuratively, concerning any private Christian. Let each have his own
interpretation. I, in the meantime, will interpret it concerning
Christ; being moved so to do by the same argument that moved
Augustine—that the fifth verse does not seem appropriately to apply
to any other but Christ. First, because, "lying down" and "sleeping,"
signify in this place altogether a natural death, not a natural
sleep. Which may be collected from this—because it then follows,
"and rose again." Whereas if David had spoken concerning the sleep of
the body, he would have said, "and awoke;" though this does not make
so forcibly for the interpretation of which we are speaking, if the
Hebrew word would be closely examined. But again, what new thing
would he advance by declaring that he laid him down and slept? Why
did he not say also that he walked, ate, drank, laboured, or was in
necessity, or mention particularly some other work of the body? And
moreover, it seems an absurdity under so great a tribulation, to
boast of nothing else but the sleep of the body; for that tribulation
would rather force him to a privation from sleep, and to be in peril
and distress; especially since those two expressions, "I laid me
down," and "I slept," signify the quiet repose of one lying down in
his place, which is not the state of one who falls asleep from
exhausture through sorrow. But this consideration makes the more
forcibly for us—that he therefore glories in his rising up again
because it was the Lord that sustained him, who raised him up while
sleeping, and did not leave him in sleep. How can such a glorying
agree, and what new kind of religion can make it agree, with any
particular sleep of the body? (for in that case, would it not apply
to the daily sleep also?) and especially, when this sustaining of God
indicates at the same time an utterly forsaken state in the person
sleeping, which is not the case in corporal sleep; for there the
person sleeping may be protected even by men being his guards; but
this sustaining being altogether of God, implies, not a sleep, but a
heavy conflict. And lastly, the word HEKIZOTHI itself favours such an
interpretation; which, being here put absolutely and transitively,
signifies, "I caused to arise or awake." As if he had said, "I caused
myself to awake, I roused myself." Which certainly more aptly agrees
with the resurrection of Christ than with the sleep of the body; both
because those who are asleep are accustomed to be roused and awaked,
and because it is no wonderful matter, nor a matter worthy of so
important a declaration, for anyone to awake of himself, seeing that
it is what takes place every day. But this matter being introduced by
the Spirit as a something new and singular, is certainly different
from all that which attends common sleeping and waking.
Verse 2. "There is no help for him in his God." In the
Hebrew the expression is simply, "in God," without the pronoun
"his" , which seems to me to give clearness and force to the
expression. As if he had said, They say of me that I am not only
deserted and oppressed by all creatures, but that even God, who is
present with all things, and preserves all things, and protects all
things, forsakes me as the only thing out of the whole universe that
he does not preserve. Which kind of temptation Job seems also to have
tasted where he says, "Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee?"
Job 7:20. For there is no temptation, no, not of the whole world
together, nor of all hell combined in one, equal unto that wherein
God stands contrary to man, which temptation Jeremiah prays against
(Jeremiah 17:17), "Be not a terror unto me; thou art my hope in the
days of evil;" and concerning which also the sixth Psalm following
saith, "O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger;" and we find the same
petitions throughout the psaltery. This temptation is wholly
unsupportable, and is truly hell itself; as it is said in the same
sixth Psalm, "for in death there is no remembrance of thee," etc. In
a word, if you have never experienced it, you can never form any idea
of it whatever.
Verse 3. "For thou, O Lord, art my helper, my glory, and
the lifter up of my head." David here contrasts three things with
three; helper, with many troublings; glory, with many rising up; and
the lifter up of the head, with the blaspheming and insulting.
Therefore, the person here represented is indeed alone in the
estimation of man, and even according to his own feelings also; but
in the sight of God, and in a spiritual view, he is by no means
alone; but protected with the greatest abundance of help; as Christ
saith (John 16:32), "Behold, the hour cometh when ye shall leave me
alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.". . . .
The words contained in this verse are not the words of nature, but of
grace; not of free-will, but of the spirit of strong faith; which,
even though seeing God, as in the darkness of the storm of death and
hell, a deserting God, acknowledges him a sustaining God; when seeing
him as a condemner, acknowledges him a Saviour. Thus this faith does
not judge of things according as they seem to be, or are felt, like a
horse or mule which have no understanding; but it understands things
which are not seen, for "hope that is seen is not hope: for what a
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" Romans 8:24.
Verse 4. "I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard
me out of his holy hill." In the Hebrew, the verb is in the
future, and is, as Hieronymus translates it, "I will cry," and "he
shall hear;" and this pleases me better than the perfect tense; for
they are the words of one triumphing in, and praising and glorifying
God, and giving thanks unto him who sustained, preserved, and lifted
him up, according as he had hoped in the preceeding verse. For it is
usual with those that triumph and rejoice, to speak of those things
which they have done and suffered, and to sing a song of praise unto
their helper and deliverer; as in Psalm 66:16, "Come, then, all ye
that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. I
cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue."
And also Psalm 81:1, "Sing aloud unto God our strength." And so
again, Exodus 15:1, "Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
gloriously." And so here, being filled with an overflowing sense of
gratitude and joy, he sings of his being dead, of his having slept
and rose up again, of his enemies being smitten, and of the teeth of
the ungodly being broken. This it is which causes the change; for he
who hitherto had been addressing God in the second person, changes on
a sudden his address to others concerning God, in the third person,
saying, "and he heard me" , not "and thou heardest me;" and
also, "I cried unto the Lord" , not, "I cried unto thee," for
he wants to make all know what benefits God has heaped upon him;
which is peculiar to a grateful mind.
Verse 5. "I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord
sustained me." Christ, by the words of this verse, signifies his
death and burial. . . . For it is not to be supposed that he would
have spoken so importantly concerning mere natural rest and sleep;
especially since that which preceeds, and that which follows, compel
us to understand him as speaking of a deep conflict and a glorious
victory over his enemies. By all which things he stirs us up and
animates us to faith in God, and commends unto us the power and grace
of God; that he is able to raise us up from the dead; an example of
which he sets before us, and proclaims it unto us as wrought in
himself. . . . . . . And this is shown also farther in his using
gentle words, and such as tend wonderfully to lessen the terror of
death. "I laid me down (saith he), and slept." He does
not say, I died, and was buried; for death and the tomb had lost both
their name and their power. And now death is not death, but a sleep;