Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings (part 2 of 2)

Verses 24-27.—Even as the sun, which, unto eyes being sound and without disease, is very pleasant and wholesome, but unto the same eyes, when they are feeble, sore and weak, is very troublesome and hurtful, yet the sun is ever all one and the selfsame that was before; so God, who hath ever shown himself benign and bountiful to those who are kind and tender-hearted towards his saints, and are merciful to those who show mercy. But unto the same men, when they fall into wickedness and grow to be full of beastly cruelty, the Lord showeth himself to be very wrathful and angry, and yet is one and the same immutable God from everlasting to everlasting.—Robert Cawdray.

Verse 25.—“With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.” “An upright”—the same word is oft translated “perfect,” he is good throughout, though not thoroughly; not one that personates religion, but that is a religious person. He is perfect, because he would be so. So Noah is termed (Gen. vi. 9); “Noah was a just man and perfect (i.e., upright) in his generation:” he was a good man in a bad age. He was like a glowing spark of fire in a sea of water, which is perfect goodness; and therefore the Holy Ghost doth so hang upon his name, as if he could not give over—it is an excellent preacher’s observation—verse 8, “But Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God. And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah: Noah begat three sons.” Noah, Noah, Noah, I love the sound of thy name; and so are all your names precious to God, though hated by men, if the name of God be dear and sweet to you. ’Tis also sometimes translated “plain.” Gen. xxv. 27. Jacob was אִישׁ תָּם, “a plain,” that is, an upright man, “dwelling in tents.” Esau was “a cunning hunter,” but Jacob was a plain man without welt or gard; you might well know his heart by his tongue, save once when Rebekah put a cunning trick into his head, otherwise he was a most “upright,” downright man. And the plain meaning of it is, a simple, cordial, unfeigned, and exact man: this is the man we are looking for.

“Man.” This substantive the Hebrews use to drown in the adjective, but here the Holy Ghost exhibits a word, and a choice one too, signifying a strong, valiant man; the same word (Psalm xlv. 3), “O mighty man!” that’s meant of our Lord Christ, who was a most strong and valiant man, that could meet the wrath of God, the malice of the devil, and the sin of man, in the face, and come off with triumph. And so the Dutch translate this clause in 2 Sam. xxii.: “With the right valiant person, thou behavest thyself upright.” In short, if the words were literally translated, they run thus:—a man of uprightness: that is every way you behold him, an upright man: like an even die, cast him which way you will he will be found square and right; a stiff and strong man to tread down both lusts within and temptations without; an Athanasius contra mundum, a Luther contra Romam; this is a man of an excellent spirit, and such is our upright man. “Thou wilt show thyself upright,” or, “wilt be upright with him;” for one word in the Hebrew makes all these six, “Thou wilt upright it with him.” If men will deal plainly with God, he will deal plainly with them. He that is upright in performing his duty shall find God upright in performing his promises. It is God’s way to carry to men as they carry to him. If thou hast a design to please him, he will have a design to please thee; if thou wilt echo to him when he calls, he’ll echo to thee when thou callest. On the other side; if a man will wrestle with God, he will wrestle with him; if thou wilt be fast and loose with him, and walk frowardly towards him, thou shalt have as good as thou bringest; if thou wilt provoke him with never-ending sins, he will pursue thee with never-ending torments; if thou wilt sin in tuo eterno, thou must suffer in suo eterno, and every man shall find like for like.... An upright heart is single without division. Unto an hypocrite there be “gods many and lords many,” and he must have an heart for each; but to the upright there is but one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, and one heart will serve them both. He that fixes his heart upon the creatures, for every creature he must have an heart, and the dividing of his heart destroys him. Hos. x. 2. Worldly profits knock at the door, he must have an heart for them; carnal pleasures present themselves, he must have an heart for them also; sinful preferments appear, they must have an heart too—Necessariorum numerus parvus, opinionum nullus; of necessary objects the number is few, of needless vanities the number is endless. The upright man hath made choice of God and hath enough.—Richard Steele.

Verse 25.—“With the merciful,” etc. In Jupiter’s hall-floor there are set two barrels of gifts, the one of good gifts or blessings, the other of evil gifts or plagues. Thus spake Homer falsely of Jupiter; it may be truly spoken of the true God, Jehovah; that he hath in his hand two cups, the one of comforts, the other of crosses, which he poureth out indifferently for the good and for the bad; “with the kind (or merciful) he will shew himself kind, and with the froward, froward.” Now this is not to make God the author of evil, but of justice, which is good; quorum deus non est author eorum est justus ultor, saith Augustine; “God is not the author of sin, but he punisheth the sinner justly.”—Miles Smith (Bishop), 1632.

Verse 26.—“With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure,” etc. But doth the Lord take colour from every one he meets, or change his temper as the company changes? That’s the weakness of sinful man: he cannot do so with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of changing. God is pure, and upright with the unclean and hypocritical, as well as with the pure and upright, and his actions show him to be so. God shows himself froward with the froward when he deals with him as he hath said he will deal with the froward—deny them and reject them. God shows himself pure with the pure, when he deals with them as he hath said he will—hear them and accept them. Though there be nothing in purity and sincerity which deserveth mercy, yet we cannot expect mercy without them. Our comforts are not grounded upon our graces, but our comforts are the fruits or consequents of our graces.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 26.—“The froward one.” Here, as in the first promise, the two combatants stand contrasted—the seed of the woman and the serpent—the benignantly bountiful, perfect, pure One, and the froward one, whose works he came to destroy, and who made it his great business to circumvent him whom he feared. The literal meaning of the word is “tortuous,” or “crooked,” and both the ideas of perversity and cunning which the figure naturally suggests, are very applicable to “that old serpent the devil.” From the concluding part of the sentence, I think there is no doubt that it is the latter idea that is intended to be conveyed. God cannot deal perversely with any one; but he outwits the wise, and takes the cunning in their own craftiness.—John Brown.

Verse 26.—“With the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.” The Hebrew word in the root signifieth to wrest or writhe a thing, or to wrest or turn a thing, as wrestlers do their bodies. Hence by a trope, it is translated often to wrestle, because a cunning man in wrestling, turneth and windeth his body, and works himself in and out every way, to get an advantage of his adversary any way; therefore your cunning-headed men, your crafty men, are fitly presented under this word; they are like wrestlers who turn and wind themselves in and out, and lie for all advantages; or as we speak, they “lie at catch.” A man knows not where to have them, or what they mean when they speak plainest, or swear solemnest; when we think we see their faces, we see but their vizards; all their promises and performances too are under a disguise.... And this word is applied to the Lord himself, “With the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward;” that is, if men will be winding and turning, and thinking to catch others or over-reach the Lord himself with tricks and turnings of wit, the Lord will meet and answer them in their own kind; he can turn as fast as they, he can put himself into such intricate labyrinths of infinite wisdom and sacred craft, as shall entangle and ensnare the most cunning wrestler or tumbler of them all. He will Cretize the Cretians, supplant the supplanters of his people.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 26.—“Wilt shew thyself froward.” It is a similitude taken from wrestlers, and noteth a writhing of one’s self against an adversary. Compare herewith Deut. xxxii. 5. “They are a perverse and crooked generation,” the same two words that are here in this text; the latter importeth that they wriggled and writhed after the manner of wrestlers that wave up and down, and wind the other way, when one thinks to have him here or there. But all will not serve their turn to save them from punishment. God will be sure to meet with them, his Word will lay hold on them, and their sin shall find them out.—John Trapp.

Verse 27.—“The afflicted people.” The word rendered “afflicted,” properly signifies “poor” or “needy.” The persons spoken of are obviously afflicted ones, for they need to be saved or delivered; but it is not their affliction, so much as their poverty, that is indicated by the epithet here given them; and, from the poor being contrasted, not with the wealthy, but with the proud—for that is the meaning of the figurative expression, “the man of high looks”—it seems plain that, though the great body of the class referred to have always been found among the comparatively “poor in this world,” the reference is to those poor ones whom our Lord represents as “poor in spirit.”—John Brown.

Verse 27.—“High looks:” namely, the proud; the raising up of the eyebrows being a natural sign of that vice. Psalm ci. 5; Prov. vi. 17.—John Diodati.

Verse 28.—“For thou wilt light my candle,” etc. The Psalmist speaks in this place of artificial light; “a candle,” or “lamp;” which has been supposed to be illustrated by the custom prevailing in Egypt of never suffering their houses to be without lights, but burning lamps even through the night, so that the poorest people would rather retrench part of their food than neglect it. Supposing this to have been the ancient custom, not only in Egypt, but in the neighbouring countries of Arabia and Judæa, “the lighting of the lamp” in this passage may have had a special allusion. In the parallel passage, 2 Sam. xxii. 29, Jehovah is figuratively styled the “lamp” of the Psalmist, as above.—Richard Mant.

Verse 28 (first clause).—“Thou also shalt”—when none else can. And notice too, how here, and often elsewhere, the Psalmist begins with speaking of God, and ends with speaking to him. So the bride in the Canticles, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine.”—Dionysius the Carthusian (1471), quoted by J. M. Neale.

Verse 29.—“By thee I have run through a troop,” etc. David ascribes his victories to God, declaring that, under his conduct, he had broken through the wedges or phalanxes of his enemies, and had taken by storm their fortified cities. Thus we see that, although he was a valiant warrior, and skilled in arms, he arrogates nothing to himself.—John Calvin.

Verse 29.—“By my God have I leaped over a wall;” or, “taken a fort.”—Henry Hammond.

Verse 29.—“Leaped over a wall.” This probably refers to his having taken some remarkable town by scaling the ramparts.—John Kitto, in “The Pictorial Bible.”

Verse 31.—“For who is God save the Lord?” Here first in the Psalms, occurs the name Eloah, rendered God. It occurs more than fifty times in the Scriptures, but only four times in the Psalms. It is the singular of Elohim. Many have supposed that this name specially refers to God as an object of religious worship. That idea may well be prominent in this place.—William S. Plumer.

Verse 32.—“It is God that girdeth me with strength.” One of the few articles of Eastern dress which I wore in the East, was the girdle, which was of great use as a support to the body in the long and weary camel-rides through the Desert. The support and strengthening I received in this way, gave me a clearer idea than I had before the meaning of the Psalmist.—John Anderson, in “Bible from Bible Lands,” 1856.

Verse 33.—“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places:” that is, he doth give swiftness and speed to his church; as Augustine interpreted it, transcendendo spinosa, et umbrosa implicamenta hujus sæculi, passing lightly through the thorny and shady incumbrances of this world. “He will make me walk upon my high places.” David saith, “He setteth me upon high places.” For, consider David, as he then was, when he composed this Psalm, it was at the time when God had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. For then God set his feet on high places, settling his kingdom, and establishing him in the place of Saul.—Edward Marbury.

Verse 33.—“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet:” מְשַׁוֶּה רַגְלַי כָּאַיָּלוֹת. Celerity of motion was considered as one of the qualities of an ancient hero. Achilles is celebrated for being πόδας ὠκύς. Virgil’s Nisus is hyperbolically described, “Et ventis et fulminis ocior alis;” and the men of God, who came to David, “Men of might, and men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler,” are said to have had “faces like the faces of lions,” and to have been “as swift as the roes upon the mountains.” 1 Chron. xii. 8. Asahel is described as “light of foot as a wild roe” (2 Sam. ii. 18); and Saul seems called the roe (in the English translation, “the beauty) of Israel.” 2 Sam. i. 19. It has been said that the legs of the hind are straighter than those of the buck, and that she is swifter than he is; but there is no sufficient proof of this. Gataker gives the true account of it when he says, “The female formula is often used for the species.” This is not uncommon in Hebrew. The female ass obviously stands for the ass species. Gen. xii. 16; Job. i. 3; xlii. 12. Some (at the head of whom is Bochart, Hierozoicon, P. i. L. ii. c. 17), have supposed the reference to be to the peculiar hardness of the hoof of the roe, which enables it to walk firmly, without danger of falling, on the roughest and rockiest places. Virgil calls the hind “æri-pedem,” brass-footed. Others suppose the reference to be to its agility and celerity. There is nothing to prevent our supposing that there is a reference to both these distinguishing qualities of the hind’s feet.—John Brown.

Verse 33.—“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet,” etc. He maketh me able to stand on the sides of mountains and rocks, which were anciently used as fastnesses in time of war. The feet of the sheep, the goat, and the hart are particularly adapted to standing in such places. Mr. Merrick has here very appositely cited the following passage from Xenophon; Lib. de Venatione: Ἐπισκοπεῖν δεῖ ἔχοντα τὰς κύνας τὰς μὲν ἐν ὄρεσι ἑστώσας ’λαφους. See also Psalm civ. 18, where the same property of standing on the rocks and steep cliffs is attributed to the wild goat.—Stephen Street, M.A., in loc., 1790.

Verse 34.—“He teacheth my hands to war,” etc. To him I owe all that military skill, or strength, or courage, which I have. My strength is sufficient, not only to bend “a bow of steel,” but to break it.—Matthew Poole.

Verse 34.—“Steel.” The word so rendered in the authorised version, properly means “copper” (נְחוּשָׁה). It is doubtful if the Hebrews were acquainted with the process of hardening iron into steel, for though the “northern iron” of Jer. xv. 12, has been supposed by some to be steel, this is by no means certain; it may have only been a superior sort of iron.—William Lindsay Alexander, in “Kitto’s Cyclopædia.”

Verse 34.—The drawing of a mighty bow was a mark of great slaughter and skill.

“So the great master drew the mighty bow, And drew with ease. One hand aloft display’d, The bending horns, and one the string essay’d.”

Alexander Pope, 1688-1744. [Translation of Homer.]

Verses 37, 38:—

Oh, I have seen the day, When with a single word, God helping me to say, “My trust is in the Lord;” My soul has quelled a thousand foes, Fearless of all that could oppose.

William Cowper, 1731-1800.

Verse 38.—“I have wounded them,” etc. Greater is he that is in us than he that is against us, and God shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly. Rom. xv. 20.—W. Wilson.

Verses 38-40.—Though passion possess our bodies, let “patience possess our souls.” The law of our profession binds us to a warfare; patiendo vincimus, our troubles shall end, our victory is eternal. Hear David’s triumph, “I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet. Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies,” etc. They have wounds for their wounds; and the treaders down of the poor are trodden down by the poor. The Lord will subdue those to us that would have subdued us to themselves; and though for a short time they rode over our heads, yet now at last we shall everlastingly tread upon their necks. Lo, then, the reward of humble patience and confident hope!—Thomas Adams.

Verse 39.—To be well girt was to be well armed in the Greek and Latin idioms, as well as in the Hebrew.—Alexander Geddes, LL.D., 1737-1802.

Verse 41.—“They shall cry, but there shall be none to help them,” etc. Sad examples enough there are of the truth of this prophecy. Of Esau it is written that he “found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” Heb. xii. 17. Of Antiochus, though he vowed in his last illness, “that also he would become a Jew himself, and go through all the world that was inhabited, and declare the power of God, yet,” continues the historian, “for all this his pains would not cease, for the just judgment of God was come upon him.” 2 Macc. ix. 17, 18. But most appropriately to this passage, it is written of Saul, “When he enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” 1 Sam. xxviii. 6. And therefore, the prophet warns us: “Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains” (Jer. xiii. 16): as Saul’s feet, indeed, stumbled on the dark mountains of Gilboa. “Even unto the Lord shall they cry:” but not, as it has been well remarked, by a Mediator: and so, crying to him in their own name, and by their own merits, they cry in vain.—John Lorinus (1569-1634), and Remigius (900), quoted by J. M. Neale.

Verse 41.—“Even unto the Lord.” As nature prompteth men in an extremity to look up for help; but because it is but the prayer of the flesh for ease, and not of the Spirit for grace, and a good use of calamities, and not but in extreme despair of help elsewhere, therefore God hears them not. In Samuel it is, “They looked, but there was none to save them,” q.d., If they could have made any other shift, God should never have heard of them.—John Trapp.

Verse 42.—“I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets,” or rather “of the streets.” In the East, all household refuse and filth is cast forth into the streets, where all of it that is at all edible is soon cleared away by birds and dogs, and all that is not is speedily dried up by the sun. To cast forth any one, therefore, as the dirt of the streets, is a strong image of contempt and rejection.—John Kitto.

Verses 43, 44.—If these words can be explained literally of David, they apply much more naturally to Jesus Christ, who has been delivered from the strivings of the Jewish people; when, after the terrible opposition he met with on their part, to the establishment of the gospel, he was made the head of the Gentiles who were a strange people, and whom he had not formerly acknowledged as his, but who nevertheless obeyed him with astonishing readiness as soon as they heard his voice.—Louis Isaac le Maistre de Stacy, 1613-1684.

Verse 45.—The first clause is comparatively easy. “The strangers shall fade away”—“shall gradually wither and disappear;” but the second clause is very difficult, “They shall be afraid out of their close places.” One Jewish scholar interprets it, “They shall fear for the prisons in which I will throw them and keep them confined.”⁶ Another, “They shall tremble in their castles to which they have betaken themselves for fear of me.” Another,⁷ “They shall surrender themselves from their fortresses.” The general meaning is plain enough. The class referred to are represented as reduced to a state of complete helpless subjugation. As to the event referred to, if we keep to the rendering of our translators the meaning may be, “The Pagans, retired now generally to villages and remote places, shall gradually dwindle away, and fearfully anticipate the complete extinction of their religion.” This exactly accords with history. If with some interpreters we read, “The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid because of their prisons,” then the meaning may be, “that they who only feigned submission, when persecution for the word should arise should openly apostatise.” This, too, would be found consonant with fact. The first of these interpretations seems the more probable.—John Brown.

Verse 46.—“The Lord liveth: and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.”—Let us unite our hearts in this song for a close of our praises. Honours die, pleasures die, the world dies; but “The Lord liveth.” My flesh is as sand; my fleshly life, strength, glory, is as a word written on sand; but “blessed be my ROCK.” Those are for a moment; this stands for ever. The curse shall devour those; everlasting blessings on the head of this. Let outward salvations vanish; let the saved be crucified; let the “God” of our salvations “be exalted.” This Lord is my rock; this God is my salvation.—Peter Sterry, 1649.

Verse 46.—“The Lord liveth.” Why do you not oppose one God to all the armies of evils that beset you round? why do you not take the more content in God when you have the less of the creature to take content in? why do you not boast in your God? and bear up yourselves big with your hopes in God and expectations from him? Do you not see young heirs to great estates act and spend accordingly? And, why shall you, being the King of heaven’s son, be lean and ragged from day to day, as though you were not worth a groat? O sirs, live upon your portion, chide yourselves for living besides what you have. There are great and precious promises, rich, enriching mercies; you may make use of God’s all-sufficiency; you can blame none but yourselves if you be defective or discouraged. A woman, truly godly for the main, having buried a child, and sitting alone in sadness, did yet bear up her heart with the expression, “God lives”; and having parted with another, still she redoubled, “Comforts die, but God lives.” At last her dear husband dies, and she sat oppressed and most overwhelmed with sorrow. A little child she had yet surviving, having observed what before she spoke to comfort herself, comes to her and saith, “Is God dead, mother? is God dead?” This reached her heart, and by God’s blessing recovered her former confidence in her God, who is a living God. Thus do you chide yourselves; ask your fainting spirits under pressing outward sorrows, is not God alive? and why then doth not thy soul revive? why doth thy heart die within thee when comforts die! Cannot a living God support thy dying hopes? Thus, Christians, argue down your discouraged and disquieted spirits as David did.—Oliver Heywood’s “Sure Mercies of David.” 1672.

Verse 47.—“It is God.” “Sir, this is none other than the hand of God; and to him alone belongs the glory, wherein none are to share with him. The General served you with all faithfulness and honour; and the best commendation I can give him is that I dare say he attributes all to God, and would rather perish than assume to himself.”—Written to the Speaker of the House of Commons, after the battle of Naseby, June 14, 1645, by OLIVER CROMWELL.

Verse 49.—I admire King David a great deal more when I see him in the quire than when I see him in the camp; when I see him singing as the sweet singer of Israel, than when I see him fighting as the worthy warrior of Israel. For fighting with others he did overcome all others; but singing, and delighting himself, he did overcome himself.—Thomas Playfere.