earnestness and humility, "Judge me, O Lord, according to my
righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me."
His hand is on an honest heart, and his cry is to a righteous
Judge.
Verse 9. He sees a smile of complacency upon the face of the King,
and in the name of all the assembled congregation he cries aloud,
"Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish
the just." Is not this the universal longing of the whole company
of the elect? When shall we be delivered from the filthy conversation
of these men of Sodom? When shall we escape from the filthiness of
Mesech and the blackness of the tents of Kedar?
What a solemn and weighty truth is
contained in the last sentence of the ninth verse! How deep is the
divine knowledge!— "He trieth." How strict, how accurate, how
intimate his search!— "he trieth the hearts," the secret
thoughts, "and reins," the inward affections. "All things are
naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to do."
Verse 10. The judge has heard the cause, has cleared the guiltless,
and uttered his voice against the persecutors. Let us draw near, and
learn the results of the great assize. Yonder is the slandered one
with his harp in hand, hymning the justice of his Lord, and rejoicing
aloud in his own deliverance. "My defense is of God, which saveth
the upright in heart." Oh, how good to have a true and
upright heart. Crooked sinners, with all their craftiness, are
foiled by the upright in heart. God defends the right. Filth will not
long abide on the pure white garments of the saints, but shall be
brushed off by divine providence, to the vexation of the men by whose
base hands it was thrown upon the godly. When God shall try our
cause, our sun has risen, and the sun of the wicked is set for ever.
Truth, like oil, is ever above, no power of our enemies can drown it;
we shall refute their slanders in the day when the trumpet wakes the
dead, and we shall shine in honour when lying lips are put to
silence. O believer, fear not all that thy foes can do or say against
thee, for the tree which God plants no winds can hurt.
Verse 11. "God judgeth the righteous," he hath not given thee
up to be condemned by the lips of persecutors. Thine enemies cannot
sit on God's throne, nor blot thy name out of his book. Let them
alone, then, for God will find time for his revenge.
"God is angry with the wicked every
day." He not only detests sin, but is angry with those who
continue to indulge in it. We have no insensible and stolid God to
deal with; he can be angry, nay, he is angry to-day and every day
with you, ye ungodly and impenitent sinners. The best day that ever
dawns on a sinner brings a curse with it. Sinners may have many feast
days, but no safe days. From the beginning of the year even to its
ending, there is not an hour in which God's oven is not hot, and
burning in readiness for the wicked, who shall be as stubble.
Verse 12. "If he turn not, he will whet his sword." What blows
are those which will be dealt by that long uplifted arm! God's sword
has been sharpening upon the revolving stone of our daily wickedness,
and if we will not repent, it will speedily cut us in pieces. Turn or
burn is the sinner's only alternative. "He hath bent his bow and
made it ready."
Verse 13. Even now the thirsty arrow longs to wet itself with the
blood of the persecutor. The bow is bent, the aim is taken,
the arrow is fitted to the string, and what, O sinner, if the arrow
should be let fly at thee even now! Remember, God's arrows never miss
the mark, and are, every one of them, "instruments of death."
Judgment may tarry, but it will not come too late. The Greek proverb
saith, "The mill of God grinds late, but grinds to powder."
Verse 14. In three graphic pictures we see the slanderer's history. A
woman in travail furnishes the first metaphor. "He travaileth with
iniquity." He is full of it, pained until he can carry it out, he
longs to work his will, he is full of pangs until his evil intent is
executed. "He hath conceived mischief." This is the original
of his base design. The devil has had doings with him, and the virus
of evil is in him. And now behold the progeny of this unhallowed
conception. The child is worthy of its father, his name of old
was,"the father of lies," and the birth doth not belie the parent,
for he brought forth falsehood. Thus, one figure is carried
out to perfection; the Psalmist now illustrates his meaning by
another, taken from the stratagems of the hunter.
Verse 15. "He made a pit, and digged it." He was
cunning in his plans, and industrious in his labours. He stooped to
the dirty work of digging. He did not fear to soil his own hands, he
was willing to work in a ditch if others might fall therein.
What mean things men will do to wreak revenge on the godly. They hunt
for good men, as if they were brute beasts; nay, they will not give
them the fair chase afforded to the hare or the fox, but must
secretly entrap them, because they can neither run them down nor
shoot them down. Our enemies will not meet us to the face, for they
fear us as much as they pretend to despise us. But let us look on to
the end of the scene. The verse says, he "is fallen into the ditch
which he made." Ah! there he is, let us laugh at his
disappointment. Lo! he is himself the beast, he has hunted his own
soul, and the chase has brought him a goodly victim. Aha, aha, so
should it ever be. Come hither and make merry with this entrapped
hunter, this biter who has bitten himself. Give him no pity, for it
will be wasted on such a wretch. He is but rightly and richly
rewarded by being paid in his own coin. He cast forth evil from his
mouth, and it has fallen into his bosom. He has set his own house on
fire with the torch which he lit to burn a neighbour. He sent forth a
foul bird, and it has come back to its nest.
Verse 16. The rod which he lifted on high, has smitten his own back.
He shot an arrow upward, and it has "returned upon his own
head." He hurled a stone at another and it has "come down upon
his own pate." Curses are like young chickens, they always come
home to roost. Ashes always fly back in the face of him that throws
them. "As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him." (Psalm 109:17.)
How often has this been the case in the histories of both ancient and
modern times. Men have burned their own fingers when they were hoping
to brand their neighbour. And if this does not happen now, it will
hereafter. The Lord has caused dogs to lick the blood of Ahab in the
midst of the vineyard of Naboth. Sooner or later the evil deeds of
persecutors have always leaped back into their arms. So it will be in
the last great day, when Satan's fiery darts shall all be quivered in
his own heart, and all his followers shall reap the harvest which
they themselves have sown.
Verse 17. We conclude with the joyful contrast. In this all these
Psalms are agreed; they all exhibit the blessedness of the righteous,
and make its colours the more glowing by contrast with the miseries
of the wicked. The bright jewel sparkles in a black foil.
Praise is the occupation of the godly, their eternal work, and
their present pleasure. Singing is the fitting embodiment for
praise, and therefore do the saints make melody before the Lord Most
High. The slandered one is now a singer: his harp was unstrung for a
very little season, and now we leave him sweeping its harmonious
chords, and flying on their music to the third heaven of adoring
praise.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Title. "Shiggaion," though some have attempted to fix on it a
reference to the moral aspect of the world as depicted in this Psalm,
is in all probability to be taken as expressing the nature of the
composition. It conveys the idea of something erratic
((Heb.), to wander) in the style; something not so calm as other
Psalms; and hence Ewald suggests, that it might be rendered,
"a confused ode," a Dithyramb. This characteristic of excitement in
the style, and a kind of disorder in the sense, suits Habakkuk 3:1,
the only other place where the word occurs. Andrew A.
Bonar.
Whole Psalm. Whatever might be the occasion of the Psalm, the
real subject seems to be the Messiah's appeal to God against the
false accusations of his enemies; and the predictions which it
contains of the final conversion of the whole world, and of the
future judgment, are clear and explicit. Samuel Horsley,
LL.D., 1733-1806.
Verse 1. "O Lord, my God, in thee do I put my trust."
This is the first instance in the Psalms where David addresses the
Almighty by the united names Jehovah and my God. No more suitable
words can be placed at the beginning of any act of prayer or praise.
These names show the ground of the confidence afterward expressed.
They "denote at once supreme reverence and the most endearing
confidence. They convey a recognition of God's infinite perfections,
and of his covenanted and gracious relations." William S.
Plumer.
Verse 2. "Lest he tear my soul like a lion," etc. It is
reported of tigers, that they enter into a rage upon the scent of
fragrant spices; so do ungodly men at the blessed savour of
godliness. I have read of some barbarous nations, who, when the sun
shines hot upon them, they shoot up their arrows against it; so do
wicked men at the light and heat of godliness. There is a natural
antipathy between the spirits of godly men and the wicked. Genesis
3:15. "I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed." Jeremiah
Burroughs, 1660.
Verse 3. "O Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there be
iniquity in my hands." In the primitive times the people of God
were then a people under great reproach. What strange things does
Tertullian tell us they reproached them withal; as that in their
meetings they made Thyestes suppers, who invited his brother to a
supper, and presented him with a dish of his own flesh. They charged
them with uncleanness because they met in the night (for they durst
not meet in the day,) and said, they blew out the candles when they
were together, and committed filthiness. They reproached them for
ignorance, saying, they were all unlearned; and therefore the
heathens in Tertullian's time used to paint the God of the Christians
with an ass's head, and a book in his hand to signify that though
they pretended learning, yet they were an unlearned, silly people,
rude and ignorant. Bishop Jewel in his sermon upon Luke 11:5, cites
this out of Tertullian, and applies it to his time:—"Do not our
adversaries do the like," saith he, "at this day, against all those
that profess the gospel of Christ? Oh, say they, who are they that
favour this way? they are none but shoemakers, tailors, weavers, and
such as were never at the university;" they are the bishop's own
words. He cites likewise Tertullian a little after, saying, that the
Christians were accounted the public enemies of the State. And
Josephus tells us of Apollinaris, speaking concerning the Jews and
Christians, that they were more foolish than any barbarian. And
Paulus Fagius reports a story of an Egyptian, concerning the
Christians, who said, "They were a gathering together of a most
filthy, lecherous people;" and for the keeping of the Sabbath, he