Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings (part 2 of 2)

Verse 13.—“Then will I teach transgressors thy ways,” etc. We see our duty craves that when we have received mercy from God for ourselves, we should make vantage of it for the edification of others. Every talent received from God should be put to profit, but specially the talent of mercy; as it is greatest, so the Lord requires greater fruit of it, both for his own glory and for the edification of our brethren. Seeing we are vessels of mercy, should not the scent and sweet odour of mercy go from us to others? This duty Christ craved from Peter: “And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren.” And this duty, as David here promiseth, so we may read how he did perform it: “Come unto me, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul.” The property of a Christian is, fides per delectionem efficax, faith worketh by love. What availeth it to pretend faith toward God, where there is no love toward thy neighbour? and wherein can thy love be declared more than in this, to draw thy neighbour to the participation of that same merit whereunto God hath called thee? By the law a man was bound to bring home his neighbour’s wandering beast if he had met with it before; how much more, then, to turn again his neighbour himself when he wanders from the Lord his God? If two men walking on the way should both fall into one pit, and the one being relieved out of it should go his way and forget his neighbour, might it not justly be called a barbarous and inhuman cruelty? We have all fallen into one and the same mire of iniquity; since the Lord hath put out his merciful hand to draw us out of this prison of sin, shall we refuse to put out our hand to see if possibly we may draw up our brethren with us?—William Cowper (Bishop).

Verse 14 (first clause).—“Deliver me from bloods.” The term bloods in Hebrew may denote any capital crime; and in my opinion he is here to be considered as alluding to the sentence of death, to which he felt himself to be obnoxious, and from which he requests deliverance.—John Calvin.

Verse 14 (first clause).—The Chaldee reads, “Deliver me from the judgment of murder.”

Verse 14.—“O God, thou God of my salvation.” “O God,” is a good invocation, for he heareth prayers. Yet to distinguish him from all false gods he is so particular as to single him from all other: “Thou God.” And to magnify him, and to re-enforce his petition, he calleth him Deum salutis, “the God of salvation,” which expresseth him able to deliver him; for it is his nature, and his love, and his glory, to be a preserver of men. And to bring home this joy and comfort into his own heart, he addeth, salutis meæ, “of my salvation.” So it is oratio fervens, and the apostle telleth us that such a prayer prevaileth much with God. For God may be a Saviour and a deliverer, and yet we may escape his saving hand, his right hand may skip us. We can have no comfort in the favours of God, except we can apply them at home; rather we may “think on God and be troubled.”—Samuel Page.

Verse 14.—“And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” Hierom, Basil, Euthymius, and other ancient doctors observe that natural corruptions and actual sins are the very rampiers which stop the free passage of song (verse 15). So David himself doth expound himself: “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” His unthankfulness did cry, his adultery cry, his murder cry unto the Lord for revenge; but alas! himself was mute, till God in exceeding great mercy did stop the mouths of his clamorous adversaries, and gave him leave to speak.—John Boys.

Verse 14.—“Aloud.” This for God, for himself, for the church. 1. For God, that his honour may be proclaimed, therefore they borrowed the voice of still and loud instruments.... 2. For himself. Having received such a benefit, he cannot contain himself, this new wine of spiritual joy which filleth his vessel must have a vent. All passions are loud. Anger chides loud, sorrow cries loud, fear shrieks loud, and joy sings loud. So he expresseth the vehemency of his affection; for to whom much is forgiven, they love much. 3. For others. Iron whetteth iron—examples of zeal and devotion affect much, and therefore solemn and public assemblies do generally tender the best service to God, because one provoketh another.—Samuel Page.

Verse 15.—“O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.” As man is a little world in the great, so the tongue is a great world in the little. Nihil habet medium; aut grande malum est, aut grande bonum.²³ It has no mean; it is either a great evil, or a great good. If good (as Eunapius said of that famous rhetorician), a walking library, a whole university of edifying knowledge; but if bad (as St. James doth tell us, ch. iii. 6), “a world of wickedness.” No better dish for God’s public service, when it is well seasoned; again, none worse, when ill handled. So that if we desire to be doorkeepers in God’s house, let us entreat God first to be a doorkeeper in our house, that he would shut the wicket of our mouth against unsavoury speeches, and open the door of our lips, “that our mouth may shew forth his praise.” This was David’s prayer, and ought to be thy practice, wherein observe three points especially; who, the Lord; what, open my lips; why, that my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For the first—man of himself cannot untie the strings of his own stammering tongue, but it is God only which openeth “a door of utterance.” Col. iv. 3. When we have a good thought, it is (as the school doth speak) gratia infusa; when a good word, gratia effusa; when a good work, gratia diffusa. Man is a lock, the Spirit of God has a key, “which openeth, and no man shutteth;” again, “shutteth, and no man openeth.” Rev. iii. 7. He did open the heart of Lydia to conceive well, the ears of the prophet to hear well, the eyes of Elisha’s servant to see well, and here the lips of David to speak well. Acts xvi.; Isai. 1.; 2 Kings vi. And therefore, whereas in the former verse he might seem too peremptory, saying, “My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness;” he doth, as it were, correct himself by this latter edition and second speech: O Lord, I find myself most unable to sing or say, but “open thou my lips,” and touch thou my tongue, and then I am sure “my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.”—John Boys.

Verse 15.—“O Lord, open thou my lips,” etc. Again he seems to have the case of the leper before his mind, with the upper lip covered, and only crying unclean, unclean; and he prays as a spiritual leper to be enabled, with freedom and fulness, to publish abroad the praise of his God.—W. Wilson.

Verse 15 (first clause).—He prays that his lips may be opened; in other words, that God would afford him matter of praise. The meaning usually attached to the expression is, that God would so direct his tongue by the Spirit as to fit him for singing his praises. But though it is true that God must supply us with words, and that if he do not, we cannot fail to be silent in his praise, David seems rather to intimate that his mouth must be shut until God called him to the exercise of thanksgiving by extending pardon.—John Calvin.

Verse 16.—“For thou desirest not sacrifice;” etc. There may be another reason why David here affirms that God would not accept of a sacrifice, nor be pleased with a burnt-offering. No particular sacrifices were appointed by the law of Moses to expiate the guilt of murder and adultery. The person who had perpetrated these crimes was, according to the divine law, to be punished with death. David therefore may be understood as declaring, that it was utterly vain for him to think of resorting to sacrifices and burnt-offerings with a view to the expiation of his guilt; that his criminality was of such a character, that the ceremonial law made no provision for his deliverance from the doom which his deeds of horror deserved; and that the only sacrifices which would avail were those mentioned in the succeeding verse, “The sacrifices of a broken heart.”—John Calvin.

Verse 16.—“Else would I give it thee.” And good reason it is, that we who lie daily at the beautiful gate of the temple begging alms of him, and receiving from his open hand, who openeth his hand, and filleth with his plenty every living thing, should not think much to return to him such offerings of our goods as his law requireth.—Samuel Page.

Verses 16, 17.—And now I was thinking what were fit to offer to God for all his lovingkindness he has showed me; and I thought upon sacrifices, for they have sometimes been pleasing to him, and he hath oftentimes smelt a sweet odour from them; but I considered that sacrifices were but shadows of things to come, and are not now in that grace they have been; for old things are past, and new are now come; the shadows are gone, the substances are come in place. The bullocks that are to be sacrificed now are our hearts; it were easier for me to give him bullocks for sacrifice, than to give him my heart. But why should I offer him that he cares not for? my heart, I know, he cares for; and if it be broken, and offered up by penitence and contrition, it is the only sacrifice that now he delights in. But can we think God to be so indifferent that he will accept of a broken heart? Is a thing that is broken good for anything? Can we drink in a broken glass? Or can we lean upon a broken staff? But though other things may be the worse for breaking, yet a heart is never at the best till it be broken; for till it be broken we cannot see what is in it; till it be broken, it cannot send forth its sweetest odour; and therefore, though God loves a whole heart in affection, yet he loves a broken heart in sacrifice. And no marvel, indeed, seeing it is he himself that breaks it; for as nothing but goat’s blood can break the adamant, so nothing but the blood of our scape-goat, Jesus Christ, is able to break our adamantine hearts. Therefore, accept, O God, my broken heart, which I offer thee with a whole heart; seeing thou canst neither except against it for being whole, which is broken in sacrifice, nor except against it for being broken, which is whole in affection.—Sir Richard Baker.

Verse 17.—“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart,” etc. When speaking of thankfulness, we might have expected him to say, “a joyful heart, or a thankful heart,” but instead of that he says, “a contrite heart.” For the joy of forgiveness does not banish sorrow and contrition for sin: this will still continue. And the deeper the sense of sin, and the truer the sorrow for it, the more heartfelt also will be the thankfulness for pardon and reconciliation. The tender, humble, broken heart, is therefore the best thank-offering.—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verse 17.—It may be observed that the second word, נִדְכֶּה, which we render contrite, denotes the being bruised and broken to pieces, as a thing is bruised in a mortar (See Numbers xi. 8), and therefore, in a moral sense, signifies such a weight of sorrow as must wholly crush the mind without some powerful and seasonable relief.—Samuel Chandler.

Verse 18.—“In thy good pleasure.” Whatever we seek must ever be sought under this restriction, “Thy good pleasure.” Build thou, but do it in thine own wise time, in thine own good way. Build thou the walls of separation that divide the church from the world; let them be in it, not of it; keep them from its evil. Build thou the walls that bind, that unite thy people into one city, under one polity, that they all may be one. Build thou, and raze thou; raze all the inner walls that divide thy people from thy people; hasten that day when, as there is but one Shepherd, so shall there be but one sheep-fold.—Thomas Alexander.

Verses 18, 19.—Some learned Jewish interpreters, while they assign the Psalm to the occasion mentioned in the title, conjecture that the 18th and 19th verses were added by some Jewish bard, in the time of the Babylonish captivity. This opinion is also held by Venema, Green, Street, French and Skinner. There does not, however, seem to be any sufficient ground for referring the poem, either in whole or in part, to that period. Neither the walls of Jerusalem, nor the buildings of Zion, as the royal palace and the magnificent structure of the temple, which we know David had already contemplated for the worship of God (2 Samuel vii. 1, etc.), were completed during his reign. This was only effected under the reign of his son Solomon. 1 Kings iii. 1.

The prayer, then, in the 18th verse might have a particular reference to the completion of these buildings, and especially to the rearing of the temple, in which sacrifices of unprecedented magnitude were to be offered. David’s fears might easily suggest to him that his crimes might prevent the building of the temple, which God had promised should be erected. 2 Samuel vii. 13. “The king forgets not,” observes Bishop Horne, “to ask mercy for his people as well as for himself; that so neither his own nor their sins might prevent either the building and flourishing of the earthly Jerusalem, or what was of infinitely greater importance, the promised blessing of Messiah, who was to descend from him, and to rear the walls of the New Jerusalem.”—James Anderson’s Note to Calvin, in loc.