Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

Title.—This Psalm was composed, as the title notes, by David prayer-wise, when he hid himself from Saul in the cave, and is inscribed with a double title, Al-taschith, Michtam of David. Al-taschith refers to the scope, and Michtam to the dignity of the subject-matter. The former signifies destroy not, or, let there be no slaughter; and may either refer to Saul, concerning whom he gave charge to his servants not to destroy him; or rather it hath reference to God, to whom in this great exigence he poured out his soul in this pathetical ejaculation; Al-taschith, destroy not. The latter title, Michtam, signifies a golden ornament, and so is suited to the choice and excellent matter of the Psalm, which much more deserves such a title than Pythagoras’ golden verses did.—John Flavel (1627-1691), in “Divine Conduct, or the Mystery of Providence.”

Title.—A Psalm composed when David fled from Saul in the cave, which is referred to in Ps. cxlii., and which, because it is without any other distinction called “the cave,” is probably that celebrated cave where David with his six hundred followers lay concealed when Saul entered and David cut off the skirt of his robe. The king, accompanied by three thousand followers, chased him to the loftiest alpine heights—“to the sheep-cotes,” where the cattle were driven in the hottest summer months only—to hunt him in every hiding-place. There was a cave, in the darkened cool of which David and his men were hid. Such caves in Palestine and the East are frequently enlarged by human hands, and so capacious that they accommodate thousands of people. This song of complaint was written during the hours of suspense which David spent there, to wait until the calamity was overpast (ver. 2); in which he only gradually gains a stout heart (ver. 8). His life was really suspended by a hair if Saul or any of his attendants had espied him!—Augustus F. Tholuck, 1856.

Title.—“The cave.” There appear good grounds for the local tradition which fixes the cave on the borders of the Dead Sea, although there is no certainty with regard to the particular cave pointed out. The cave so designated is at a point to which David was far more likely to summon his parents, whom he intended to take from Bethlehem into Moab, than to any place in the western plains.... It is an immense natural cavern, the mouth of which can be approached only on foot along the side of the cliff. Irby and Mangles, who visited it without being aware that it was the reputed Cave of Adullam, state that it “runs in by a long winding, narrow passage, with small chambers or cavities on either side. We soon came to a large chamber with natural arches of great height; from this last there were numerous passages, leading in all directions, occasionally joined by others at right angles, and forming a perfect labyrinth, which our guides assured us had never been perfectly explored—the people being afraid of losing themselves. The passages are generally four feet high by three feet wide, and were all on a level with each other.” ... It seems probable that David as a native of Bethlehem, must have been well acquainted with this remarkable spot, and had probably often availed himself of its shelter, when out with his father’s flocks. It would, therefore, naturally occur to him as a place of refuge when he fled from Gath.—John Kitto (1804-1854), in “A Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.”

Whole Psalm.—Mystically this hymn may be construed of Christ, who was in the days of his flesh assaulted by the tyranny both of spiritual and temporal enemies. His temporal enemies, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and people of Israel, furiously raged and took counsel together against him. The chief priests and princes were, saith Hierome, like lions, and the people like the whelps of lions, all of them in a readiness to devour his soul. The rulers laid a net for his feet in their captious interrogatories, asking (Matt. xxii. 17), “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not?” and (John viii. 5) whether the woman taken in the very act of adultery should be stoned to death or no. The people were “set on fire,” when as they raged against him, and their teeth and tongues were spears and swords, in crying, “Crucify him, crucify him.” His spiritual enemies also sought to swallow him up; his soul was among lions all the days of his life, at the hour of his death especially. The devil in tempting and troubling him, had laid a snare for his feet; and death, in digging a pit for him, had thought to devour him. As David was in the cave, so Christ the Son of David was in the grave.—John Boys, 1571-1625.

Verse 1.—“Be merciful unto me, O God,” etc. This excellent Psalm was composed by David when there was enough to discompose the best man in the world. The repetition notes both the extremity of the danger, and the ardency of the supplicant. Mercy! Mercy! Nothing but mercy, and that exerting itself in an extraordinary way, can now save him from ruin. The arguments he pleads for obtaining mercy in this distress are very considerable. 1. He pleads his reliance upon God as an argument to move mercy. “My soul trusteth in thee,” etc. This his trust and dependence upon God, though it be not argumentative in respect of the dignity of the act; yet it is so in respect both of the nature of the object, a compassionate God, who will not expose any that take shelter under his wings, and in respect of the promise, whereby protection is assured to them that fly to him for sanctuary. Isa. xxvi. 3. 2. He pleads former experiences of his help in past distresses, as an argument encouraging hope under the present strait (ver. 2).—John Flavel.

Verse 1.—“Be merciful unto me.” According to the weight of the burden that grieveth us, is the cry that comes from us. How do poor condemned prisoners cry to their judges, “Have pity upon us, have pity upon us!” David, in the day of his calamities doubles his prayer for mercy: “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee,” etc. “Until these calamities be overpast.” It was not a single calamity, but a multitude of calamities which compassed David, and therefore he compasseth the Lord about with petitions. His spirit being up in prayer, like a bell that rings out, he strikes on both sides, “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me.”—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 1.—“Be merciful unto me.” The first clause contains the prayer itself in a very forcible word חָנֵּנִי, properly, “Show thy most tender affection to me,” such as animals, with a humming sound, show to their young.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 1.—“For my soul trusteth in thee.” The best reason with God, who “taketh pleasure in those that hope in his mercy.” Ps. cxlvii. 11.—Pool’s Synopsis.

Verse 1.—“Soul.” His soul trusted in God; and this is a form of expression the force of which is not to be overlooked; for it implies that the trust which he exercised proceeded from his very innermost affections—that it was of no volatile character, but deeply and strongly rooted. He declares the same truth in figurative terms, when he adds his persuasion that God would cover him with the shadow of his wings.—John Calvin.

Verse 1.—“In the shadow of thy wings I will trust;” properly, I will seek for protection. The very delightful figure here employed, is taken from the chicken lying safely hid under the mother’s wings: at the same time it seems to have reference to the wings of the cherubim, by which the mercy-seat was covered.—Simon de Muis, 1587-1644.

Verse 1.—“The shadow of thy wings.” Compare Psalm xvii. 8; lxi. 4; and Matthew xxiii. 37; and the Apocalyptic imagery, describing the church fleeing from the dragon in the wilderness; and “to her are given the two wings of the great eagle,” and she is delivered from the dragon, who desires to swallow her up. See Rev. xii. 6, 15, 16.—Christopher Wordsworth, 1868.

Verse 1.—“Until these calamities be overpast.” He compareth his affliction and calamity to a storm that cometh and goeth: as it is not always fair weather with us in this life, so not always foul. Athanasius said of Julian furiously raging against the Lord’s Anointed, “Nubecula est, cito transibit,” he is a little cloud; he will soon pass away. Man is born to labour and dolor, to travail and trouble; to labour in his actions, to dolor in his passions; and so, “Great are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of all.” If we put our trust in him and cast all our care upon him, he will in his good time bring it to pass, that all our afflictions shall overpass. He will either take them from us or us from them, and then we shall assuredly know that the troubles of this life present are not worthy of the glory which in the life to come shall be showed unto us. For as the globe of the earth, which improperly for his show of bigness we term the world, and is, after the mathematician’s account, many thousand miles in compass; yet, being compared unto the greatness of the starry sky’s circumference, is but a centre or little prick: so the travail and affliction in this life temporal, in respect of the joys eternal in the world to come, bear not any proportion, but are to be reputed in comparison a very nothing, as a dark cloud that cometh and goeth in a moment.—John Boys.

Verses 1, 2, 3.—“In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast,” etc. As if he said, Lord, I am already in the cave and in the hold, and in the shadow of it, but yet for all that I think not myself safe indeed, till I have made my refuge in the shadow of thy wings: that is therefore the course I resolve and build upon. It was wisely done of him: and mark what course he takes to do it, verse 2, “I will cry unto God most high,” I will by prayer put myself under the shadow of God’s wings; and mark what success should follow, verse 3, “He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.” When we send prayers up to heaven, God will send help down from heaven. But yet David prays to God, as well as trusts in God. And unless we pray as well as trust, our trust will fail us, for we must trust to God for that we pray for.—Jeremiah Dyke, 1620.

Verse 2.—“Unto God that performeth all things for me.” God’s favours already received are a pledge that he will complete his work of love “upon (עַל) me.” The beginning is the earnest of the completion. His word is a guarantee for the performance of “all things” that I need. (Compare verse 3; Psalm lvi. 4; 1 Samuel ii. 9; iii. 12; xxiii. 17; xxiv. 21; Psalm cxxviii. 8; Job x. 3, 8; xiv. 15; Philippians i. 6; Isaiah xxvi. 12).—A. R. Fausset.

Verse 2.—“God that performeth all things for me.” Heb. that performeth (or perfecteth, or finisheth, as this word is rendered, Psalm cxxxviii. 8, i.e., will certainly perform or finish), for, or towards, or concerning me. He doth not express what he performeth, or perfecteth, or fulfilleth, but leaveth it to be understood, as being easy to be understood. “He performeth” or perfecteth, to wit, all that he hath promised; engaged himself to perform what he hath begun to do, or what is yet to be performed; it being usual in the Hebrew language to understand a verbal noun after the verb. He implies that God is not like men, who make large promises, but either through inability, or carelessness, or unfaithfulness, do not perform them, but will certainly be as good as his word.—Matthew Pool, 1624-1679.

Verse 2 (last clause).—The word which we translate “performeth” comes from a root that signifies both to perfect and to desist or cease. For when a business is performed and perfected, the agent then ceases and desists from working: he puts to the last hand when he finishes the work. To such a happy issue the Lord hath brought all his doubtful and difficult matters before; and this gives him encouragement that he will still be gracious, and perfect that which concerneth him now, as he speaks, Psalm cxxxviii. 8, “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.” The Septuagint renders it by τὸν εὐεργετήσοντά με, who profiteth or benefiteth me. And it is a certain truth, that all the results and issues of providence are profitable and beneficial to the saints. But the supplement in our translation well conveys the importance of the place: “who performeth all things;” and it involves the most strict and proper notion of providence, which is nothing else but the performance of God’s gracious purposes and promises to his people. And therefore Vatablus and Muis supply and fill up the room which the conciseness of the original leaves, with quæ promisit: “I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth the things which he hath promised.” Payment is the performance of promises. Grace makes the promise, and providence the payment. Piscator fills it with benignitatem et misericordiam suam; “unto God that performeth his kindness and mercy.” But still it supposes the mercy performed to be contained in the promise, and much more so in the providential performance of it to us.—John Flavel.

Verse 2 (last clause).—David even then when he fled from Saul in the cave he looks upon God as having performed all things for him. The word is, he hath perfected all things; and it is observable that David uses the same expression of praising God here when he was in the cave, hiding himself to save his life as he did when he triumphed over his enemies.—Ps. vi. and Ps. cviii.—Jeremiah Burroughs, 1599-1646.

Verse 2 (last clause).—The Targum curiously paraphrases this clause: “Who ordered the spider that wrought the web, on my account, at the mouth of the cave;” applying a later historical fact, which, however, may have had its prototype in David’s history.—Andrew A. Bonar, in “Christ and his Church in the Book of Psalms,” 1859.

Verse 3.—“Him that would swallow me up.” If I were to take you to my house, and say that I had an exquisitely fat man, and wished you to join me in eating him, your indignation could be restrained by nothing. You would pronounce me to be crazy. There is not in New York a man so mean that he would not put down a man who should propose to have a banquet off from a fellow man, cutting steaks out of him, and eating them. And that is nothing but feasting on the human body, while they all will sit down, and take a man’s soul, and look for the tender loins, and invite their neighbours in to partake of the little titbits. They will take a man’s honour and name, and broil them over the coals of their indignation, and fill the whole room with the aroma thereof, and give their neighbour a piece, and watch him, and wink as he tastes it. You all eat men up.... You eat the souls, the finest elements of men. You are more than glad if you can whisper a word that is derogatory to a neighbour, or his wife, or his daughter.... The morsel is too exquisite to be lost. Here is the soul of a person, here is a person’s hope for this world and the world to come, and you have it on your fork, and you cannot refrain from tasting it, and give it to some one else to taste. You are cannibals, eating men’s honour and name and rejoicing in it—and that, too, when you do not always know that the things charged against them are true; when in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the probabilities are that they are not true.—Henry Ward Beecher, 1870.

Verse 3.—“God shall send forth his mercy and his truth,” viz., to save me. That is to say, God, to manifest his mercy, and vindicate the truth of his promises, will save me. The reader will observe, that mercy and truth are here poetically represented as ministers of God, standing in his presence, ready to execute his pleasure, and employed by him in the salvation of his people.—Samuel Chandler.

Verse 3.—“His mercy and his truth.” He need not send down angels, he need send but “mercy and truth” down, which elsewhere it is said he prepares in the heavens. Ps. lxi. 7. He prepares commissions for them, and sends them down with them for execution.—Thomas Goodwin.

Verse 4.—“My soul is among lions.” This may also be construed of the church and that both in respect of her spiritual enemies and temporal. As for her ghostly foes, the devil is a roaring lion (1 Pet. v. 8), and our sins are the whelps of lions, ready to devour us. And concerning outward enemies, the church in this world is like Daniel in the lion’s den, or as “the sucking child playing upon the hole of the asp.” Isa. xi. 8. She hath here no visible power or outward help to fly to for succour, all her trust is in the Lord, and “under the shadow of his wings is her refuge, till this evil is overpast.” ... And surely, beloved, if the church had not any other enemies, but only these monstrous Antichrists of Rome, yet she might truly complain with our prophet here, “My soul is among lions.” Eleven popes had that name, whereof all, excepting two or three, were roaring lions in their Bulls, and ravening lions in seeking after their prey. Leo the tenth so pilled²⁹ and polled³⁰ the goodly nations of Germany with his impardonable pardons and merciless indulgences, as that his insupportable cruelty gave the first occasion of the Reformation of religion in that country.—John Boys.

Verse 4 (first clause).—“Mudge translates literally, ‘I lie with my soul amidst lionesses.’” This agrees with the opinion of Bochart, who thinks that the animals here intended are lionesses, properly, when giving suck to their young, a time when they are peculiarly fierce and dangerous, “nor need we wonder,” he observes, “that the lioness is reckoned among the fiercest lions; for the lioness equals, or even exceeds, the lion in strength and fierceness;” and this he proves from the testimonies of ancient writers.—James Anderson’s Note to Calvin in loc., 1846.

Verse 4.—“And I lie even among them that are set on fire.” The whole pith lies in the word אֶשְׁכְּבָה I will recline, which denotes a tranquil and secure condition of body and mind, like a man reclining and sleeping, as Ps. iii. 5: “I laid me down and slept, I awaked;” and lived composedly; Ps. iv. 9; “I will both lay me down in peace” etc.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 4.—The horrors of a lion’s den, the burning of a fiery furnace, and the cruel onset of war, are the striking images by which David here describes the peril and wretchedness of his present condition.—John Morison.

Verse 6.—“Net.” Not having fire-arms, the ancients were much more skilful than the moderns in the use of snares, nets, and pits for capturing wild animals. A large class of Biblical figures and allusions necessarily presupposes this state of things.—W. M. Thomson.

Verse 7.—“My heart is fixed, O God” etc. The Psalmist, knowing that it is the order and work of God, first to prepare the heart for communion, and then to incline his own ear to hear his people, and to entertain communion with them in ordinances, he doth observe this order, and follow it with a practise suitable to it in his daily addresses to God, that is thus, wheresoever he doth find his heart put into a fitted and prepared frame for communion with God, he doth not let it die again, and go out of frame by a slothful neglect of such a disposition of heart. No, but he immediately sets himself to duty, to worship God, and to the acts of his worship, in his ordinances, as he expresseth himself in Ps. lvii. 7; viz., thus—נָכוֹן לִבִּי אֱלֹהִים נָכוֹן לִבִּי, Nachon libbi Elohim, nachon libbi (there is the first; he finds his heart fitted and prepared for communion with God): “My heart,” saith he, “is fitted or prepared” (for the word נָכוֹן, nachon is the passive conjugation niphal, signifying, he is fitted or prepared, from the root, כּוּן chun, he fitted or prepared, in the active; and so it is rather to be rendered prepared or fitted, then “fixed,” thus: לִבִּי, libbi, my heart; נָכוֹן, nachon, is fitted or prepared), “O God, my heart is fitted or prepared” for communion with thee. Well, what follows? He presently sets himself upon that great duty and ordinance of communion with God, in the praising of his name and singing forth those praises, as in the words immediately following in the same verse, thus: “My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared:” therefore, וַאֲזַמֵּרָה, ashidah va-azamerah, “I will sing and give praise.”—William Strong, in “Communion with God,” 1656.

Verse 7.—“My heart is fixed, O God,” etc. Fitness for duty lies in the orderly temper of body and mind, making a man willing to undertake, and able to finish his work with comfortable satisfaction. If either the body or mind be distempered, a man is unfit for such an undertaking; both must be in a suitable frame, like a well-tuned instrument, else there will be no melody: hence when David prepared himself for praises and worship, he tells us his heart was ready and fixed, and then, his tongue was ready also (Psalm xlv. 1.), so was his hand with Psaltery and harp; all these were awakened into a suitable posture. That a man is or hath been in a fit order for service may be concluded from (1.) His alacrity to undertake a duty. (2.) His activity in the prosecution. (3.) His satisfaction afterward. Right grounds and principles in these things being still pre-supposed.—Richard Gilpin, (1625-1699, 1700) in “Dæmonologia Sacra.”

Verse 7.—“I will sing.” It should alarm the wicked that they are contending with a people who sing and shout on the battle-field. Yea, they never sing louder than when most distressed and afflicted. Whether saints conquer or are conquered they still sing on. Blessed be God for that. Let sinners tremble at contending with men of a spirit so heavenly.—William S. Plumer.

Verse 7.—Sincerity makes the Christian sing, when he hath nothing to his supper, David was in none of the best case when in the cave, yet we never find him merrier: his heart makes sweeter music than ever his harp did.—William Gurnall.

Verses 7, 8.—That worship that is performed with a sleepy, drowsy body, is a weak worship, but the Psalmist here makes the awaking of the body to be the fruit and effect of the preparation of the heart; “Awake up, my glory; awake, Psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.” Why so? My heart is prepared. The heart prepared and thereby awakened, will awake the body. To worship God therefore without a prepared heart, is to worship him with a drowsy body, because with a drowsy heart, and therefore weakly.—John Angier, in “An Help to better Hearts, for better Times,” 1647.

Verse 8.—“Awake up, my glory; awake, Psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.” We must prevent God by early praise as well as prayer; “The God of my mercy shall prevent me,” sings David; and every child of David must prevent God again with his songs. Jehoshaphat delighted God with instruments of music before his deliverance. Faith must tune an επινίκιον, a psalm of victory before the triumph. Praise is the ingenious mother of future mercies; as the Virgin Mary sang at Hebron before the birth of her son at Bethlehem. Oh, heavenly contention between mercy and duty!—Samuel Lee, 1625-1691.

Verse 8.—“Awake up, my glory,” etc. We must sing with excited grace. Not only with grace habitual, but with excited and actual: the musical instrument delights not but when it is played upon. In this duty we must follow Paul’s advice to Timothy (2 Tim. i. 6), ἀναζωπυρεῖν, stir up the grace that is in us, and cry out as David, “Awake love, awake delight.” Ps. lvii. 8. The clock must be wound up before it can guide our time; the bird pleaseth not in her nest, but in her notes; the chimes only make music while they are going. Let us therefore beg the Spirit to blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow out, when we set upon this joyous service. God loves active grace in duty, that the soul should be ready trimmed when it presents itself to Christ in any worship.—John Wells, in “Morning Exercises,” 1674.

Verse 8.—“I will awake early,” Literally, “I will awake the dawn,” a bold figure of poetry, as if the writer had said—The morning shall not awake me to praise; but in my songs I will anticipate the dawn.—R. T. Society’s Notes.

Verse 8.—It will answer our purpose to take notice, first, of the terms David uses, and then, secondly, press the exhortation. Of the terms he uses: 1. My glory. That is my soul (say some) because the spirit of a man is the glory of a man, whereby he is dignified and raised so much above the brutes, as to be but a “little lower than the angels,” nay, to be akin to God himself, “the Father of spirits.” My musical skill, say others, the glory of the artist above the unskilful; and that wherein David had the glory of excelling, as Jubal had of the first invention. My tongue, say others; for this is also the glory of a man above dumb creatures, and the glory of a wise man above a fool. And as the tongue is the glory of a man, so the glory of the tongue is to glorify God. Praise is the glory of all other uses to which the tongue is employed; and the tongue is, in the body, that “temple of the Holy Ghost,” what the silver trumpet was in the temple of Solomon; to sound the high praises of God, and express the raised affections of our souls.

2. “Awake Psaltery and harp.” The one for a Psalm, the other for a spiritual song or hymn; that is to say, all my musical instruments and skill I will employ in, and consecrate to the glory of him who “puts new songs into my mouth.” He first teaches my fingers to fight, and then to play the epinikion, or song of triumph. Sound, then, my Psaltery and harp, emulous of those that are around the throne above; your melody can soften my cares, lay my fears, and turn my cave into a choir. As to these instruments in the worship of God, they were doubtless allowed to David, and to the church in his time. They were agreeable to the state of that church and people, who were led very much by their senses; and whose infant and less discerning condition made it needful for the natural man to have something to fasten upon and be entertained with in the worship of God, and to sweeten and take off from the labour and burden of that service. But as the gospel worship and appointments are a more spiritual, pleasant, and reasonable service, and need them less, so in the gospel institution we find no footsteps of them; and we know who first brought them into the church, as well as who first brought them into the world. It is not my business here to dispute this matter; and he must at any time do it but indifferently, whose inclination is against him all the while, and whose genius tempts him to wish himself solidly confuted in all he can advance. But since I find these instruments in my text, and since the sound of such texts as these is made use of to turn the public worship so frequently into concerts of music, I shall leave them with this remark: that to let them alone, especially in public worship, though one thought them tolerable, has a much better grace with it than to declare them “sorely displeasing to God, and that they filthily defile his holy house and place of prayer.”

3. “I myself will awake early.” And without this, all the rest had been an empty sound; there would have been no melody to the Lord, whatsoever good music he might have made to himself. He would not put God off with a sacrifice of mere air. He summons the attendance of all his powers. Himself is the offering; and his music plays to the sacrifice, as it goes up in holy affections and spiritual joys; and unless these accompany the song, the mere breath of an organ, or the trembling of the strings of an harp is as good devotion and less offensive to God. Consider the nature and excellency of the duty. Singing Psalms is a compound of several other duties. It contains prayer to a very great advantage: the stretch of the voice does humour and lead on the earnest reaching of the mind after the desired blessing. It is the very element and breath of praise; and the apostle tells us that “teaching and admonishing one another” is performed in singing “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” For when we sing of judgment, it is awakening to sinners; and when we sing of mercy, it is comforting to all. Meditation cannot have a better help. The solemn movement of the time gives room for the mind to compass the full sense of the matter, and to impress it deep; and while the tongue is making the pause, the heart may make elevation. In short, it gives an accent to all duty; it is the music of all other ordinances; It is adapted and suited to all circumstances; as appears from the Psalms composed upon all occasions and subjects, doctrinal, prophetical, hortatory, and historical; of praise and prayer, of grief and joy, in the penitential and complaining, in the triumphal and rejoicing; as if singing of psalms could stand for everything, and, like the manna in the wilderness, gives a taste of all the other food we enjoy in the house of God.—Benjamin Grosvenor, D.D. (1675-1758), in “An Exhortation to the Duty of Singing.” Eastcheap Lectures, 1810.

Verse 8.—The Psaltery was a stringed instrument, usually with twelve strings, and played with the fingers. The harp or lyre was a stringed instrument, usually consisting of ten strings. Josephus says that it was struck or played with a key. It appears, however, that it was sometimes played with the fingers.—Albert Barnes.

Verse 9.—“I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people.” The Spirit of God who indited this scripture, made his penman know that the Gentiles should have the use of his Psalms.—David Dickson.

Verse 9.—“The people”—“the nations.” The Hebrew church was neither called nor qualified to be a missionary society, but it never ceased to desire and hope for the conversion of the nations. This is seen in those passages in which the Psalmists betray a consciousness that they shall one day have all the world for auditors. How boldly does David exclaim, “I will sing unto thee among the nations.” In the same spirit, a later Psalmist summons the church to lift up her voice, so that all the nations may hear her recital of the Lord’s mighty acts: “O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.” Ps. cv. 1. The full import of this class of texts is often hidden from the English reader by the circumstance that our translators have hardly ever used the word people in its plural form. Twice in the Revelation they venture to write peoples; everywhere else the singular form has to do duty for both numbers; so that in not a few passages the sense is greatly obscured to those who have no access either to the original or to other versions. In the Psalms, in particular, the mention of the Gentiles is more frequent than the English reader is made aware of. It is to be observed, moreover, that in addition to this strain of indirect prediction, the conversion of the world is articulately celebrated in many glorious Psalms. Indeed, so numerous are these, and so generally distributed over the centuries between David and Ezra, that it would seem that at no time during the long history of inspired Psalmody, did the Spirit cease to indite new songs in which the children of Zion might give utterance to their world-embracing hopes.—William Binnie, D.D., in “The Psalms: their History, Teachings, and Use,” 1870.

Verses 10, 11.—A hard and ungrateful heart beholds even in prosperity only isolated drops of divine grace; but a grateful one like David’s, though chased by persecutors, and striking the harp in the gloom of a cave, looks upon the mercy and faithfulness of God as a mighty ocean, waving and heaving from the earth to the clouds, and from the clouds to the earth again.—Augustus F. Tholuck.

Verse 11.—“Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens,” etc. Greater words of prayer than these never came from human lips. Heaven and earth have as they imply, a mutually interwoven history, and the blessed, glorious end of this is in the sunrise of the Divine glory over both.—Franz Delitzsch, 1869.