(3.) In some passages the term bones is applied to the soul, and not
to the body, to the inner man of the individual Christian. Then it
implies the strength and fortitude of the soul, the determined
courage which faith in God gives to the righteous. This is the sense
in which it is used in the second verse of Psalm 6,. "O Lord, heal
me; for my bones are vexed." Augustine, Ambrose, and
Chrysostom; quoted by F. H. Dunwell, B.A., in "Parochial Lectures on
the Psalms," 1855.
Verse 3. "My soul." Yokefellows in sin are yokefellows
in pain; the soul is punished for informing, the body for performing,
and as both the informer and performer, the cause and the instrument,
so shall the stirrer up of sin and the executor of it be punished.
John Donne.
Verse 3. "O Lord, how long?" Out of this we have three
things to observe; first, that there is an appointed time which God
hath measured for the crosses of all his children, before which time
they shall not be delivered, and for which they must patiently
attend, not thinking to prescribe time to God for their delivery, or
limit the Holy One of Israel. The Israelites remained in Egypt till
the complete number of four hundred and thirty years were
accomplished. Joseph was three years and more in the prison till the
appointed time of his delivery came. The Jews remained seventy years
in Babylon. So that as the physician appointeth certain times to the
patient, both wherein he must fast, and be dieted, and wherein he
must take recreation, so God knoweth the convenient times both of our
humiliation and exaltation. Next, see the impatiency of our nature in
our miseries, our flesh still rebelling against the Spirit, which
oftentimes forgetteth itself so far, that it will enter into
reasoning with God, and quarrelling with him, as we may read in Job,
Jonas, etc., and here also of David. Thirdly, albeit the Lord delay
his coming to relieve his saints, yet hath he great cause if we could
ponder it; for when we were in the heat of our sins, many times he
cried by the mouth of his prophets and servants, "O fools, how long
will you continue in your folly?" And we would not hear; and
therefore when we are in the heat of our pains, thinking long, yea,
every day a year till we be delivered, no wonder is it if God will
not hear; let us consider with ourselves the just dealing of God with
us; that as he cried and we would not hear, so now we cry, and he
will not hear. A. Symson.
Verse 3. "O Lord, how long?" As the saints in heaven
have their usque quo , how long, Lord, holy and true, before
thou begin to execute judgment? So, the saints on earth have their
usque quo. How long, Lord, before thou take off the execution
of this judgment upon us? For, our deprecatory prayers are not
mandatory, they are not directory, they appoint not God his ways, nor
times; but as our postulatory prayers are, they also are submitted to
the will of God, and have all in them that ingredient, that herb of
grace, which Christ put into his own prayer, that veruntamen, yet
not my will, but thy will be fulfilled; and they have that
ingredient which Christ put into our prayer, fiat voluntas, thy
will be done in earth as it is in heaven; in heaven there is no
resisting of his will; yet in heaven there is a soliciting, a
hastening, an accelerating of the judgment, and the glory of the
resurrection; so though we resist not his corrections here upon the
earth, we may humbly present to God the sense which we have of his
displeasure, for this sense and apprehension of his corrections is
one of the principal reasons why he sends them; he corrects us
therefore that we might be sensible of his corrections; that when we,
being humbled under his hand, have said with his prophet, "I will
bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him"
(Micah 7:9), he may be pleased to say to his correcting angel, as he
did to his destroying angel, This is enough, and so burn his
rod now, as he put up his sword then. John Donne.
Verse 4. "Return, O Lord, deliver my soul," etc. In
this his besieging of God, he brings up his works from afar off,
closer; he begins in this Psalm, at a deprecatory prayer; he asks
nothing, but that God would do nothing, that he would forbear him—
rebuke me not, correct me not. Now, it costs the king less to
give a pardon than to give a pension, and less to give a reprieve
than to give a pardon, and less to connive, not to call in question,
than either reprieve, pardon, or pension; to forbear is not much. But
then as the mathematician said, that he could make an engine, a
screw, that should move the whole frame of the world, if he could
have a place assigned him to fix that engine, that screw upon, that
so it might work upon the world; so prayer, when one petition hath
taken hold upon God, works upon God, moves God, prevails with God,
entirely for all. David then having got this ground, this footing in
God, he brings his works closer; he comes from the deprecatory to a
postulatory prayer; not only that God would do nothing against him,
but that he would do something for him. God hath suffered man to see
Arcana imperii , the secrets of his state, how he governs—he
governs by precedent; by precedents of his predecessors, he cannot,
he hath none; by precedents of other gods he cannot, there are none;
and yet he proceeds by precedents, by his own precedents, he does as
he did before, habenti dat , to him that hath received he gives
more, and is willing to be wrought and prevailed upon, and pressed
with his own example. And, as though his doing good were but to learn
how to do good better, still he writes after his own copy, and
nulla dies sine linea . He writes something to us, that is, he
doth something for us every day. And then, that which is not often
seen in other masters, his copies are better than the originals; his
latter mercies larger than his former; and in this postulatory
prayer, larger than the deprecatory, enters our text, "Return, O
Lord; deliver my soul: O save me," etc. John Donne.
Verse 5. "For in death there is no remembrance of thee, in
the grave who will give thee thanks?" Lord, be thou pacified and
reconciled to me. . . . for shouldest thou now proceed to take away
my life, as it were a most direful condition for me to die before I
have propitiated thee, so I may well demand what increase of glory or
honour will it bring unto thee? Will it not be infinitely more
glorious for thee to spare me, till by true contrition I may regain
thy favour?—and then I may live to praise and magnify thy mercy and
thy grace: thy mercy in pardoning so great a sinner, and then confess
thee by vital actions of all holy obedience for the future, and so
demonstrate the power of thy grace which hath wrought this change in
me; neither of which will be done by destroying me, but only thy just
judgments manifested in thy vengeance on sinners, Henry Hammond,
D.D., 1659.
Verse 6. "I fainted in my mourning." It may seem a
marvellous change in David, being a man of such magnitude of mind, to
be thus dejected and cast down. Prevailed he not against Goliath,
against the lion and the bear, through fortitude and magnanimity? But
now he is sobbing, sighing, and weeping as a child! The answer is
easy; the diverse persons with whom he hath to do occasioneth the
same. When men and beasts are his opposites, then he is more than a
conqueror; but when he hath to do with God against whom he sinned,
then he is less than nothing.
Verse 6. "I caused my bed to swim." . . . . . . Showers
be better than dews, yet it is sufficient if God at least hath
bedewed our hearts, and hath given us some sign of a penitent heart.
If we have not rivers of waters to pour forth with David, neither
fountains flowing with Mary Magdalen, nor as Jeremy, desire to have a
fountain in our head to weep day and night, nor with Peter weep
bitterly; yet if we lament that we cannot lament, and mourn that we
cannot mourn: yea, if we have the smallest sobs of sorrow and tears
of compunction, if they be true and not counterfeit, they will make
us acceptable to God; for as the woman with the bloody issue that
touched the hem of Christ's garment, was no less welcome to Christ
than Thomas, who put his fingers in the print of the nails; so, God
looketh not at the quantity, but the sincerity of our repentance.
Verse 6. "My bed." The place of his sin is the place of
his repentance, and so it should be; yea, when we behold the place
where we have offended, we should be pricked in the heart, and there
again crave him pardon. As Adam sinned in the garden, and Christ
sweat bloody tears in the garden. "Examine your hearts upon your
beds, and convert unto the Lord;" and whereas ye have stretched forth
yourselves upon your bed to devise evil things, repent there and make
them sanctuaries to God. Sanctify by your tears every place which ye
have polluted by sin. And let us seek Christ Jesus on our own bed,
with the spouse in the Canticles, who saith, "By night on my bed I
sought him whom my soul loveth." Archibald Symson.
Verse 6. "I water my couch with tears." Not only I
wash, but also I water. The faithful sheep of the great
Shepherd go up from the washing place, every one bringeth
forth twins, and none barren among them. Canticles 4:2. For so
Jacob's sheep, having conceived at the watering troughs, brought
forth strong and party-coloured lambs. David likewise, who before had
erred and strayed like a lost sheep making here his bed a
washing-place, by so much the less is barren in obedience, by how
much the more he is fruitful in repentance. In Solomon's temple stood
the caldrons of brass, to wash the flesh of those beasts which were
to be sacrificed on the altar. Solomon's father maketh a water of his
tears, a caldron of his bed, an altar of his heart, a sacrifice, not
of the flesh of unreasonable beasts, but of his own body, a living
sacrifice, which is his reasonable serving of God. Now the Hebrew
word here used signifies properly, to cause to swim, which is more
than simply to wash. And thus the Geneva translation readeth it, I
cause my bed every night to swim. So that as the priests used to swim
in the molten sea, that they might be pure and clean, against they
performed the holy rites and services of the temple, in like manner
the princely prophet washeth his bed, yea, he swimmeth in his bed, or
rather he causeth his bed to swim in tears, as in a sea of grief and
penitent sorrow for his sin. Thomas Playfere, 1604.
Verse 6. "I water my couch with my tears." Let us water
our bed every night with our tears. Do not only blow upon it with
intermissive blasts, for then like fire, it will resurge and flame
the more. Sin is like a stinking candle newly put out, it is soon
lighted again. It may receive a wound, but like a dog it will easily
lick itself whole; a little forbearance multiplies it like Hydra's
heads. Therefore, whatsoever aspersion the sin of the day has brought
upon us, let the tears of the night wash away. Thomas
Adams.
Verses 6, 7. Soul-trouble is attended usually with great pain
of body too, and so a man is wounded and distressed in every part.
There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, says
David. "The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof
drinketh up my spirit." Job 6:4. Sorrow of heart contracts the
natural spirits, making all their motions slow and feeble; and the
poor afflicted body does usually decline and waste away; and,
therefore, saith Heman, "My soul is full of troubles, and my life