'TH § 33. PSALM XXXIX. HE most beautiful of all the elegies in the Psalter.' The struggle depicted here is not against the wicked and apostate, but against the King of Terrors. Death, awful in every age, was at this time something at the thought of which the stoutest and holiest quailed1. Men who believed in a sure and speedy distribution of rewards and punishments in this life from the hand of a personal God, and who had not yet attained to the conviction of a life beyond the grave, could not leave the world either with the apathy of a Stoic or with the resignation of a Christian. To the Psalmist the approach of death would have been appalling even amidst the sympathy of believers and the consolation of friends. How doubly bitter when the ungodly and the scoffer twit him with his afflictions as a triumphant refutation of his belief in the sure interposition and the omnipotence of Jehovah2! His pain, he feels, must be endured in silence. But the pain though long suppressed at length obtains the mastery, and the struggle between these two opposing feelings issues in this vehement outburst of despair, which gradually subsides, as his thoughts pass from the frailty of man to the overruling omnipotence of God. In hope and in prayer to Him the desponding heart finds comfort, the highest to which we can attain short of that higher hope of victory over death. The remarkable similarity between this Psalm and the speeches of Job, contained in the chapters from the 3rd to the 31st, can hardly be accidental, and a careful comparison of the two would lead to the belief that the Psalm was known to the writer of the book of Job and might have occasioned the attempt which is there made to find a higher solution for the difficulties and perplexities of the problem of life. * Cp. $$ 26, 27. vi, xii. 2 v. 1-3. 3 v.4-7. 4 Cp. § 81. lxxvii. 10. I. The Psalmist would fain keep silence before the wicked, but pain compelleth him to speak. I said, 'let me take heed to my ways, 'that I offend not with my tongue: 'let me keep my mouth as it were with a bridle, 'while the ungodly is in my sight!' I held my tongue and spake not of my desire, but it was pain and grief to me :— my heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire kindled: I 2 3 4 at the last I spake with my tongue; 'O Jehovah, let me know mine end, 5 'and the number of my days, how long I have to live, 'that I may know how frail I am! 'behold, Thou hast made my days as it were a span long, 6 'and mine age is even as nothing before Thee: 'verily every man living is but a breath! 'man walketh as a vain shadow; 'he disquieteth himself in vain : 7 'he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them! II. Amid his misery he findeth help in God, yet the wrath of God is terrible to human weakness: 'And now, Lord, what is my hope? 8 'truly my hope is even in Thee! 'deliver me from all mine offences, 'make me not a rebuke unto the foolish! 9 'I am become dumb, and open not my mouth : 10 'for it is Thy doing! 'take Thy rod away from me, II 'I am even consumed by the means of Thy heavy hand! Ver. 3. desire, i. e. of the good which I had lost and which I wished to regain. 'when Thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin, III. he seeketh rest in an appeal to God's compassion. 12 'Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, and give heed to my complaint, 13 'hold not Thy peace at my tears! 'for I am a stranger with Thee, 'and a sojourner as all my fathers were; J4 turn away Thy face from me that I may recover my gladness, 15 'before I go hence and be no more seen!' Ver. 12. moth. Cp. Job xiii. 28. Ver. 14. sojourner. Cp. Gen. xlvii. 9. Ver. 15. Thy face, i. e. 'the look of Thy displeasure,' Job vii. 19; xiv. 6. § 34. PSALM XC. HIS has been called the funeral hymn of the world. THIS The troubles of the times in which the Psalmist's life had been cast made him realize to the full the great truth of the frailty of man and the transitoriness of all that is human. This truth has a far different significance to the spiritual and to the worldly man. To the worldly man it brings either despair or recklessness; a folding of the hands in fatalistic indifference, or the spirit of 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.' To the spiritual man it is the counterpart of the higher truth of the eternity of God; the lesson it teaches him is not despair but resignation, not fatalism or frivolity but faith and earnestThe criterion of man's greatness is not his power of resistance to God, but his power to co-operate with God's work and to bring his own will into harmony with the will of God. The highest prayer which man can offer to God is 'Thy will be done,' and it is only when the union between the human and the divine will is complete that the work of man can gain a blessing for itself and exert a lasting influence on the world. ness. I. God's power; man's weakness. Lord! THOU hast been our refuge from one generation to another! I before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God: Thou turnest man to destruction, again Thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men : -for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it vanisheth, and as a watch in the night ;— 2 3 4 Thou scatterest them, they are as a dream in the morning, 5 yea, even as the grass which groweth up; in the morning it is green and groweth up, II. Sin, the source of man's weakness. 6 For we consume away in Thy displeasure, 7 and are afraid at Thy wrathful indignation: Thou hast set our misdeeds before Thee, 8 and our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance : for when Thou art angry all our days are gone, 9 we bring our years to an end as a sound that dieth away: Ver. 2. Before the mountains. Cp. Prov. viii, 25: Wisdom speaketh; 'Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth- when He prepared the heavens, I was there; when He set a compass upon the face of the deep.' Ver. 4. yesterday, when it vanisheth, i.e. at its vanishing. The minutes seem to flow more quickly as the day nears its close. Ver. 5. dream-grass. There is here a double comparison; life is compared to a dream, and to flowers, which in Palestine spring up in the morning and are killed by the midday sun. For the former cp. § 33. xxxix. 7; § 80. lxxiii. 19; Isaiah xxix. 8; for the latter cp. § 62. xxxvii, 2; Job xiv. 2; Isaiah xxxvii. 27. Ver. 8. misdeeds. Jeremiah xxxii. 19, 'For Thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the children of men, to give every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.' the days of our age are threescore years and ten, or scarce ΙΟ fourscore years; yea, even their strength is but vanity and a thing of nought, so soon passeth it away, and we are gone: who knoweth the power of Thy wrath? for even as Thy majesty so is Thy displeasure : teach us then to number our days, and to bring the offering of an understanding heart. III. A prayer for the return of God's favour. Turn Thee again, O Jehovah! Oh! how long-? be gracious unto Thy servants! O refresh us with Thy mercy and that soon, I I 12 13 14 so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life! comfort us again now after the days that Thou hast plagued us, 15 and the years wherein we have suffered adversity! shew Thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory! 16 and the glorious majesty of the Lord our God be upon us! 17 prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us, O prosper Thou our handy-work! Ver. 10. height. their strength, i. c. the prime of their years, when their strength is at the Ver. 11. majesty, i.e. dreadfulness. Ezek. i. 18. Ver. 13. how long? i. e. how long will it be before Thou turnest to visit us? Cp. § 124. lxxxix. 45; Is. vi. 11; Rev. vi. 10. Ver. 15. after, i. e. according to or in proportion to, as in the Litany, 'Neither reward us after our iniquities.' Ver. 16. Thy work. The great work here prayed for is that of the Deliverer or Messiah, to which the Prophets of the 8th century so often refer. Is. xxviii. 21; xxix. 23; Hab. iii. 2. Cp. Notes to § 37. lxxvi. and § 63. lxxii. nu Expectations of a Messiah. |