draweth nigh unto the grave." In this inward distress we find our
strength decay and melt, even as wax before the fire; for sorrow
darkeneth the spirits, obscures the judgment, blinds the memory, as
to all pleasant things, and beclouds the lucid part of the mind,
causing the lamp of life to burn weakly. In this troubled condition
the person cannot be without a countenance that is pale, and wan, and
dejected, like one that is seized with strong fear and consternation;
all his motions are sluggish, and no sprightliness nor activity
remains. A merry heart doth good, like a medicine; but a broken
spirit drieth the bones. Hence come those frequent complaints in
Scripture: My moisture is turned into the drought of the summer: I am
like a bottle in the smoke; my soul cleaveth unto the dust: my face
is foul with weeping, and on my eyelid is the shadow of death. Job
16:16, 30:17, 18-19. "My bones are pierced in me, in the night
seasons, and my sinews take no rest; by the great force of my disease
is my garment changed. He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become
like dust and ashes. Many times indeed the trouble of the soul does
begin from the weakness and indisposition of the body. Long
affliction, without any prospect of remedy, does, in process of time,
begin to distress the soul itself. David was a man often exercised
with sickness and the rage of enemies; and in all the instances
almost that we meet with him in the Psalms, we may observe that the
outward occasions of trouble brought him under an apprehension of the
wrath of God for his sin. (Psalm 6:1, 2; and the reasons given,
verses 5 and 6.) All his griefs running into this most terrible
thought, that God was his enemy. As little brooks lose themselves in
a great river, and change their name and nature, it most frequently
happens that when our pain is long and sharp, and helpless and
unavoidable, we begin to question the sincerity of our estate toward
God, though at its first assault we had few doubts or fears about it.
Long weakness of body makes the soul more susceptible of trouble, and
uneasy thoughts. Timothy Rogers on Trouble of Mind.
Verse 7. "Mine eye is consumed." Many make those eyes
which God hath given them, as it were two lighted candles to let them
see to go to hell; and for this God in justice requiteth them, seeing
their minds are blinded by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the
flesh, and the pride of life, God, I say, sendeth sickness to
debilitate their eyes which were so sharp-sighted in the devil's
service, and their lust now causeth them to want the necessary sight
of their body.
Verse 7. "Mine enemies." The pirates seeing an empty
bark, pass by it; but if she be loaded with precious wares, then they
will assault her. So, if a man have no grace within him, Satan
passeth by him as not a convenient prey for him; but being loaded
with graces, as the love of God, his fear, and such other spiritual
virtues, let him be persuaded that according as he knows what stuff
is in him, so will he not fail to rob him of them, if in any case he
may, Archibald Symson.
Verse 7. That eye of his that had looked and lusted after his
neighbour's wife is now dimmed and darkened with grief and
indignation. He has wept himself almost blind. John Trapp.
Verse 8. "Depart from me," etc., i.e., you may
now go your way; for that which you look for, namely, my death, you
shall not have at this present; for the Lord hath heard the voice
of my weeping, i.e., has graciously granted me that which with
tears I asked of him. Thomas Wilcocks.
Verse 8. "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity."
May not too much familiarity with profane wretches be justly charged
upon church members? I know man is a sociable creature, but that will
not excuse saints as to their carelessness of the choice of their
company. The very fowls of the air, and beasts of the field, love not
heterogeneous company. "Birds of a feather flock together." I have
been afraid that many who would be thought eminent, of a high stature
in grace and godliness, yet see not the vast difference there is
between nature and regeneration, sin and grace, the old and the new
man, seeing all company is alike unto them. Lewis Stuckley's
"Gospel Glass", 1667.
Verse 8. "The voice of my weeping." Weeping hath a
voice, and as music upon the water sounds farther and more
harmoniously than upon the land, so prayers, joined with tears, cry
louder in God's ears, and make sweeter music than when tears are
absent. When Antipater had written a large letter against Alexander's
mother unto Alexander, the king answered him, "One tear from my
mother will wash away all her faults." So it is with God. A penitent
tear is an undeniable ambassador, and never returns from the throne
of grace unsatisfied. Spencer's Things New and Old.
Verse 8. The wicked are called, "workers of iniquity,"
because they are free and ready to sin, they have a strong tide and
bent of spirit to do evil, and they do it not to halves but
thoroughly; they do not only begin or nibble at the bait a little (as
a good man often doth), but greedily swallow it down, hook and all;
they are fully in it, and do it fully; they make a work of it, and so
are "workers of iniquity." Joseph Caryl.
Verse 8. Some may say, "My constitution is such that I cannot
weep; I may as well go to squeeze a rock, as think to get a tear."
But if thou canst not weep for sin, canst thou grieve? Intellectual
mourning is best; there may be sorrow where there are no tears, the
vessel may be full though it wants vent; it is not so much the
weeping eye God respects as the broken heart; yet I would be loath to
stop their tears who can weep. God stood looking on Hezekiah's tears
(Isaiah 38:5), "I have seen thy tears." David's tears made music in
God's ears, "The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping." It
is a sight fit for angels to behold, tears as pearls dropping from a
penitent eye. T. Watson.
Verse 8. "The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping."
God hears the voice of our looks, God hears the voice of our tears
sometimes better than the voice of our words; for it is the Spirit
itself that makes intercession for us. Romans 8:26. Gemitibus
inenarrabilibus , in those groans , and so in those
tears, which we cannot utter; ineloquacibus , as
Tertullian reads that place, devout, and simple tears, which cannot
speak, speak aloud in the ears of God; nay, tears which we cannot
utter; not only utter the force of the tears, but not utter the very
tears themselves. As God sees the water in the spring in the veins of
the earth before it bubble upon the face of the earth, so God sees
tears in the heart of a man before they blubber his face; God hears
the tears of that sorrowful soul, which for sorrow cannot shed tears.
From this casting up of the eyes, and pouring out the sorrow of the
heart at the eyes, at least opening God a window through which he may
see a wet heart through a dry eye; from these overtures of
repentance, which are as those imperfect sounds of words, which
parents delight in, in their children, before they speak plain, a
penitent sinner comes to a verbal and a more expressive prayer. To
these prayers, these vocal and verbal prayers from David, God had
given ear, and from this hearing of those prayers was David come to
this thankful confidence, "The Lord hath heard, the Lord will
hear." John Donne.
Verse 8. What a strange change is here all of a sudden! Well
might Luther say, "Prayer is the leech of the soul, that sucks out
the venom and swelling thereof." "Prayer," saith another, "is an
exorcist with God, and an exorcist against sin and misery." Bernard
saith, "How oft hath prayer found me despairing almost, but left me
triumphing, and well assured of pardon!" The same in effect saith
David here, "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord
hath heard the voice of my weeping." What a word is that to his
insulting enemies! Avaunt! come out! vanish! These be words used to
devils and dogs, but good enough for a Doeg or a Shimei. And the Son
of David shall say the same to his enemies when he comes to judgment.
John Trapp.
Verse 9. "The Lord hath heard my supplication," etc.
The psalmist three times expresses his confidence of his prayers
being heard and received, which may be either in reference to his
having prayed so many times for help, as the apostle Paul did (2
Corinthians 12:8); and as Christ his antitype did (Matthew 26:39, 42,
44); or to express the certainty of it, the strength of his faith in
it, and the exuberance of his joy on account of it. John Gill,
D.D., 1697-1771.
Verse 10. "Let all mine enemies be ashamed," etc. If
this were an imprecation, a malediction, yet it was medicinal, and
had rationem boni, a charitable tincture and nature in it; he
wished the men no harm as men. But it is rather prædictorium ,
a prophetical vehemence, that if they will take no knowledge of God's
declaring himself in the protection of his servants, if they would
not consider that God had heard, and would hear, had rescued, and
would rescue his children, but would continue their opposition
against him, heavy judgments would certainly fall upon them; their
punishment should be certain, but the effect should be uncertain; for
God only knows whether his correction shall work upon his enemies to
their mollifying, or to their obduration. . . . In the second word,
"Let them be sore vexed," he wishes his enemies no worse than
himself had been, for he had used the same word of himself before,
Ossa turbata, My bones are vexed; and Anima turbata, My
soul is vexed; and considering that David had found this vexation
to be his way to God, it was no malicious imprecation to wish that
enemy the same physic that he had taken, who was more sick of the
same disease than he was. For this is like a troubled sea after a
tempest; the danger is past, but yet the billow is great still; the
danger was in the calm, in the security, or in the tempest, by
misinterpreting God's correction to our obduration, and to a
remorseless stupefication; but when a man is come to this holy
vexation, to be troubled, to be shaken with the sense of the
indignation of God, the storm is past, and the indignation of God is
blown over. That soul is in a fair and near way of being restored to
a calmness, and to reposed security of conscience that is come to
this holy vexation. John Donne.
Verse 10. "Let all mine enemies [or all mine enemies
shall] be ashamed, and sore vexed," etc. Many of the mournful Psalms
end in this manner, to instruct the believer that he is continually
to look forward, and solace himself with beholding that day, when his
warfare shall be accomplished; when sin and sorrow shall be no more;
when sudden and everlasting confusion shall cover the enemies of
righteousness; when the sackcloth of the penitent shall be exchanged
for a robe of glory, and every tear becomes a sparkling gem in his
crown; when to sighs and groans shall succeed the songs of heaven,
set to angels harps, and faith shall be resolved into the vision of
the Almighty. George Horne.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse 1. A sermon for afflicted souls.
I. God's twofold dealings.
(1) Rebuke, by a telling sermon, a