Verse 13. Let it repent thee. According to the not infrequent and well known phraseology of Scripture, God is said to repent, when putting away men's sorrow, and affording new ground of gladness, he appears as it were to be changed.— John Calvin.
Verse 14. O satisfy us with thy mercy. A poor hungry soul lying under sense of wrath, will promise to itself happiness for ever, if it can but once again find what it hath sometime felt; that is, one sweet fill of God's sensible mercy towards it.— David Dickson.
Verse 14. O satisfy us. That is everywhere and evermore the cry of humanity. And what a strange cry it is, when you think of it, brethren! Man is the offspring of God; the bearer of his image; he stands at the head of the terrestrial creation; on earth he is peerless; he possesses wondrous capacities of thought, and feeling, and action. The world, and all that is in it, has been formed in a complete and beautiful adaptation to his being. Nature seems to be ever calling to him with a thousand voices, to be glad and rejoice; and yet he is unsatisfied, discontented, miserable! This is a most strange thing—strange, that is, on any theory respecting man's character and condition, but that which is supplied by the Bible; and it is not only a testimony to the ruin of his nature, but also to the insufficiency of everything earthly to meet his cravings.— Charles M. Merry, 1864.
Verse 14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. We pass now to this particular prayer, and those limbs that make up the body of it. They are many; as many as words in it: satisfy, and satisfy us, and do that early, and do that with that which is thine, and let that be mercy. So that first it is a prayer for fulness and satisfaction,— satisfy: and then it is a prayer not only of appropriation to ourselves, satisfy me, but of a charitable dilation and extension to others, satisfy us, all us, all thy servants, all thy church; and then thirdly it is a prayer of despatch and expedition, "Satisfy us early; " and after that, it is a prayer of evidence and manifestation, satisfy us with that which is, and which we may discern to be thine; and then lastly it is a prayer of limitation even upon God himself, that God will take no other way herein but the way of "mercy." "Satisfy us early with thy mercy." ...There is a spiritual fulness in this life of which St. Hierome speaks, Ebrietas felix, satietas salutaris, A happy excess and a wholesome surfeit; quoe quanto copiosius sumitur, majorem donat sobrietatem , In which the more we eat, the more temperate we are, and the more we drink, the more sober. In which (as St. Bernard also expresses it in his mellifluence) Mutua interminabili inexplicabili generatione, desiderium generat satietatem, et satietas parit desiderium, By a mutual and reciprocal, by an undeterminable and inexpressible generation of one another, the desire of spiritual graces begets a satiety, and then this satiety begets a farther desire. This is a holy ambition, a sacred covetousness. Naphtali's blessing, "O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord", De 33:23; St. Stephen's blessing, "Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost", Ac 6:5; the blessed Virgin's blessing, "Full of grace"; Dorcas' blessing, "Full of good works and of alms deeds", Ac 9:36; the blessing of him who is blessed above all, and who blesseth all, even Christ Jesus, "Full of wisdom, full of the Holy Ghost, full of grace and truth". Lu 2:40 4:1 Joh 1:14. ... "Satisfy us early with" that which is thine, "thy mercy; " for there are mercies (in a fair extent and accommodation of the word, that is refreshing, eases, deliverances), that are not his mercies, nor his satisfactions...It is not his mercy, except we go by good ways to good ends; except our safety be established by alliance with his friends, except our peace may be had with the perfect continuance of our religion, there is no safety, there is no peace. But let me feel the effect of this prayer, as it is a prayer of manifestation, let me discern that that which is done upon me is done by the hand of God, and I care not what it be, I had rather have God's vinegar, than man's oil, God's wormwood, than man's manna, God's justice, than any man's mercy; for therefore did Gregory Nyssen call St. Basil in a holy sense, Ambidextrum, because he took everything that came by the right handle, and with the right hand, because he saw it come from God. Even afflictions are welcome when we see them to be his: though the way that he would choose, and the way that this prayer entreats, be only mercy, "Satisfy us early with thy mercy." — John Donne.
Verse 16. And thy glory unto their children. That is to say, that our children may see the glorious fruit of this affliction in us, that so they may not be discouraged thereby to serve thee, but rather the more heartened, when they shall see what a glorious work thou hast wrought in and upon us by afflicting us.— William Bradshaw.
Verse 16-17. "Thy work." "The work of our hands." You will observe a beautiful parallelism between two things which are sometimes confounded and sometimes too jealously sundered: I mean God's agency and man's instrumentality, between man's personal activity and that power of God which actuates and animates, and gives it a vital efficacy. For forty years it had been the business of Moses to bring Israel into a right state politically, morally, religiously: that had been his work, And yet, in so far as it was to have any success or enduringness, it must be God's work. "The work of our hands" do thou establish; and this God does when, in answer to prayer, he adopts the work of his servants, and makes it his own "work", his own "glory", his own "beauty."— James Hamilton.
Verse 16-17. There is a twofold Rabbinical tradition respecting this verse and the preceding one; that they were the original prayer recited by Moses as a blessing on the work of making the Tabernacle and its ornaments, and that subsequently he employed them as the usual formula of benediction for any newly undertaken task, whenever God's glorious Majesty was to be consulted for an answer by Urim and Thummim.— Lyranus, R. Shelomo, and Genebrardus, quoted by Neale.
Verses 16-17. They were content to live and to die as pilgrims, provided only they could feel that in his sterner dealings with them, God was, however slowly, preparing the way for that display of glorious blessedness which should be the lot of their descendants. In a similar spirit they ask God to establish the work of their hands, though they reckoned not that they should behold its results. Their comfort in sowing was the belief that their children would reap.— Joseph Francis Thrupp.
Verses 16-17. It is worthy of notice that this prayer was answered. Though the first generation fell in the wilderness, yet the labours of Moses and his companions were blessed to the second. These were the most devoted to God of any generation that Israel ever saw. It was of them that the Lord said, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first fruits of his increase." It was then that Balaam could not curse, but, though desirous of the wages of unrighteousness, was compelled to forego them, and his curse was turned into a blessing. We are taught by this case, amidst temporal calamities and judgments, in which our earthly hopes may be in a manner extinguished, to seek to have the loss repaired by spiritual blessings. If God's work does but appear to us, and our posterity after us, we need not be dismayed at the evils which afflict the earth.— Andrew Fuller.
Verse 17. Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us , etc. Let us try to look at our life's work in relation to the Lord's beauty. Our work and Divine Beauty, at first sight, how different; yet, on deeper insight, how truly one, how inseparably united. There is light so beauty giving, that nothing it touches is positively ugly. In our sea girt island, with our fickle climate and grey atmosphere, we can only rarely imagine what magic power the serene skies, the balmy air, the sunny atmosphere of the South have over even the least interesting object in nature; but from certain hours, in certain places, I think we may form an idea of the transforming faculty of light. There is also spiritual light, so beauty inspiring, that the plainest face within which it is born is illumined with singular loveliness, which wins its way into many a heart. Who of us has not marvelled at an unexpected light, in what we had always thought an uninteresting face? Who has not beheld a light divine irradiate the human countenance, giving joy, and prophesying perfection, where we had least thought to find beauty? May we not take these facts as emblems, albeit faint and imperfect, of what the "Beauty of the Lord" does for us, and our work? You know what the natural light can do for material objects; you know what mental and moral light can work for human faces; rise from these, and know what spiritual light, Divine Light, can do for immortal beings and immortal works.— Jessie Coombs, in "Thoughts for the Inner Life", 1867.
Verse 17. The beauty of the Lord. In the word Men (beauty) there is something like a deluge of grace. Thus far, he says, we have sought thy work, O Lord. There we do nothing, but are only spectators and recipients of thy gifts, we are merely passive. There thou showest thyself to us, and makest us safe, by thy work alone, which thou doest, when thou dost liberate us from that disease which Satan inflicted on the whole human race in Adam, to wit, Sin and Eternal death.— Martin Luther.
Verse 17. God is glorified and his work advances when his church is beautiful. The beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness,—that beauty which in the Lord Jesus himself shone with lustre so resplendent, and which ought to be repeated or reflected by every disciple. And it is towards this that all amongst us who love the Saviour, and who long for the extension of his Kingdom, should very mainly direct their endeavours. Nothing can be sadder than when preaching or personal effort is contradicted and neutralized by the low or unlovely lives of those who pass for Christians; and nothing can go further to insure success than when prayer is carried out and preaching is seconded by the pure, holy, and benevolent lives of those who seek to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.— James Hamilton.
Verse 17. The work of our hands. Jarchi interprets this of the work of the Tabernacle, in which the hands of the Israelites were employed in the wilderness; so Arama of the Tabernacle of Bezaleel.— John Gill.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse 1. The near and dear relation between God and his people, so that they mutually dwell in each other.
Verse 1. The abode of the church the same in all ages; her relation to God never changes.
Verse 1.
1. The soul is at home in God. (a) Originally. Its birth place—its native air—home of its thoughts, will, conscience, affections, desires. (b) Experimentally. When it returns here it feels itself at home: "Return unto thy rest", etc. (c) Eternally. The soul, once returned to this home, never leaves it: "it shall go no more out for ever."
2. The soul is not at home elsewhere. "Our dwelling place", etc. (a) For all men. (b) At all times. He is ever the same, and the wants of the soul substantially are over the same.— G.R.
Verse 2. A Discourse upon the Eternity of God. S. Charnock. Works pg 344-373, Nichol's Edition.
Verse 2. ( last clause ).—The consideration of God's eternity may serve,
1. For the support of our faith; in reference to our own condition for the future; in reference to our posterity; and to the condition of God's church to the end of the world.
2. For the encouragement of our obedience. We serve the God who can give us an everlasting reward.
3. For the terror of wicked men.
— Tillotson's Sermon on the Eternity of God.
Verse 3.
1. The cause of death—"thou turnest."
2. The nature of death—"return."
3. The necessities of death—reconciliation with God, and preparation to return.
Verse 4.
1. Contemplate the lengthened period with all its events.
2. Consider what He must be to whom all this is as nothing.
3. Consider how we stand towards Him.
Verse 5. Comparison of mortal life to sleep. See William Bradshaw's remarks in our Notes on this verse.
Verses 5-6. The lesson of the Meadows.
1. Grass growing the emblem of youth.
2. Grass flowering—or man in his prime.
3. The scythe.
4. Grass mown—or man at death.
Verse 7.
1. Man's chief troubles are the effect of death. (a) His own death. (b) The death of others.
2. Death is the effect of Divine anger: "We are consumed by", etc.
3. Divine anger is the effect of sin. Death by sin.— G.R.
Verse 8.
1. The notice which God takes of sin. (a) Individual. "Our iniquities." (b) Universal notice—"iniquities"—not one only, but all. (c) Minute, even the most secret sins. (d) Constant: "Set them before" him—"in the light", etc.
2. The notice which we should take of them on that account. (a) In our thoughts. Set them before us. (b) In our consciences. Condemn ourselves on account of them. (c) In our wills. Turn from them by repentance—turn to a pardoning God by faith.— G.R.
Verse 9.
1. Every man has a history. His life is as a tale—a separate tale—to be told.
2. Every man's history has some display of God in it. All our days, some may say, are passed away in thy wrath—all, others may say, in thy love—and others, some of our days in anger and some in love.
3. Every man's history will be told. In death, at judgment, through eternity.— G.R.
Verse 10.
1. What life is to most. It seldom reaches its natural limits. One half die in childhood; more than half of the other half die in manhood; few attain to old age.
2. What life is at most. "Threescore years", etc.
3. What it is to most beyond that limit. "If by reason", etc.
4. What it is to all. "It is soon cut off", etc.— G.R.
Verse 11.
1. The anger of God against sin is not fully known by its effects in this life. "Who knoweth the power", etc. Here we see the hiding of its power.
2. The anger of God against sin hereafter is equal to our greatest fears. "According to thy fear", etc.; or, "the fear of thee", etc.— G.R.
Verse 12.
1. The Reckoning. (a) What their usual number. (b) How many of them are already spent. (c) How uncertain the number that remains. (d) How much of them must be occupied with the necessary duties of this life. (e) What afflictions and helplessness may attend them.
2. The use to be made of it. (a) To "seek wisdom"—not riches, worldly honours, or pleasures—but wisdom; not the wisdom of the world, but of God. (b) To "apply the heart" to it. Not mental merely, but moral wisdom; not speculative merely, but experimental; not theoretical merely, but practical. (c) To seek it at once—immediately. (d) To seek it constantly— "apply our hearts", etc.
3. The help to be sought in it. "So teach us", etc. (a) Our own ability is insufficient through the perversion both of the mind and heart by sin. (b) Divine help may be obtained. "If any man lack wisdom." etc.— G.R.
Verse 12. —The Sense of Mortality. Show the variety of blessings dispensed to different classes by the right use of the sense of mortality.
1. It may be an antidote for the sorrowful. Reflect, "there is an end."
2. It should be a restorative to the labouring.
3. It should be a remedy for the impatient.
4. As a balm to the wounded in heart.
5. As a corrective for the worldly.
6. As a sedative to the frivolous.
— R. Andrew Griffin, in "Stems and Twigs", 1872.
Verse 13. In what manner the Lord may be said to repent.
Verse 14. ( first clause ). See "Spurgeon's Sermons", No. 513: "The Young Man's Prayer."
Verse 14.
1. The deepest yearning of man is for satisfaction.
2. Satisfaction can only be found in the realization of Divine Mercy.
— C.M. Merry, 1864.
Verse 14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy , etc. Learn,
1. That our souls can have no solid satisfaction in earthly things.
2. That the mercy of God alone can satisfy our souls.
3. That nothing but satisfaction in God can fill our days with joy and gladness.
— John Cawood, 1842.
Verse 14.
1. The most cheerful days of earth are made more cheerful by thoughts of Divine mercy.
2. The most sorrowful days of earth are made glad by the consciousness of Divine love.
— G.R.
Verse 15.
1. The joy of faith is in proportion to the sorrow of repentance.
2. The joy of consolation is in proportion to suffering in affliction.
3. The joy of the returning smiles of God is in proportion to the terror of his frowns.— G.R.
Verse 15. The Balance of life, or the manner in which our joys are set over against our sorrows.
Verse 16.
1. Our duty—"work", and our desire about it.
2. Our children's portion—"glory", and our prayer in reference to it.
Verse 17. The Right Establishment, or the work which will endure—why it will endure and should endure. Why we wish our work to be of such a nature, and whether there are enduring elements in it.
WORKS UPON THE NINETIETH PSALM
Enarratio Psalmi 90. Per D. Doctorem Martinum Luth. In Schola Vuittembergensi, Anno, 1534, publice absoluta, edita vers Anno MD.
41. (In Vol. 4 of the Jena edition of Luther's Works, 1712 and other years, folio.)
A Meditation of Man's Mortalitie. Containing an Exposition of the Ninetieth Psalme. By that Reverend and Religious Servant of God Mr. William Bradshaw, sometime Fellow of Sidney Colledge in Cambridge. Published since his decease by Thomas Gataker B. of D. and Pastor of Rotherhith. London...1621.
Moses his Prayer. Or, An Exposition of the Ninetieth Psalme. In which is set forth, the Frailty and Misery of Mankind: most needful for these Times.
Wherein:
1. The Sum and Scope.
2. The Doctrines.
3. The Reasons.
4. The uses of most Texts are observed.
By Samuel Smith, Minister of the Gospel, Author of David's Repentance and the Great Assize, and yet Living...1656.