Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings (part 2 of 2)

Verse 8.—“I will guide thee with mine eye.” We read in natural story¹⁰ of some creatures, Qui solo oculorum aspectu fovent ova,¹¹ which hatch their eggs only by looking upon them. What cannot the eye of God produce and hatch in us? Plus est quod probatur aspectu, quam quod sermone.¹² A man may seem to commend in words, and yet his countenance shall dispraise. His word infuses good purposes into us; but if God continue his eye upon us it is a further approbation, for he is a God of pure eyes, and will not look upon the wicked. “This land doth the Lord thy God care for, and the eyes of the Lord are always upon it from the beginning of the year, even to the end thereof.” Deut. xi. 12. What a cheerful spring, what a fruitful autumn hath that soul, that hath the eye of the Lord always upon her! The eye of the Lord upon me makes midnight noon; it makes Capricorn Cancer, and the winter’s the summer’s solstice; the eye of the Lord sanctifies, nay, more than sanctifies, glorifies all the eclipses of dishonour, makes melancholy cheerfulness, diffidence assurance, and turns the jealousy of the sad soul into infallibility.... This guiding us with his eye manifests itself in these two great effects; conversion to him, and union with him. First, his eye works upon ours; his eye turns ours to look upon him. Still it is so expressed with an Ecce; “Behold the eye of the Lord is upon all them that fear him; his eye calls ours to behold that; and then our eye calls upon his, to observe our cheerful readiness.... When, as a well made picture doth always look upon him that looks upon it, this image of God in our soul is turned to him, by his turning to it, it is impossible we should do any foul, any uncomely thing in his presence.... The other great effect of his guiding us with his eye, is, that it unites us to himself; when he fixes his eye upon us, and accepts the return of ours to him, then he ‘keeps’ us as the ‘apple’ of his eye.” Zech. ii. 8.... These are the two great effects of his guiding us by his eye, that first, his eye turns us to himself, and then turns us into himself; first, his eye turns ours to him, and then, that makes us all one with himself, so as that our afflictions shall be put upon his patience, and our dishonours shall be injurious to him; we cannot be safer than by being his; but thus we are not only his, but he—to every persecutor, in every one of our behalf, he shall say, Cur me? Why persecutest thou me? And as he is all power, and can defend us, so here he makes himself all eye, which is the most tender part, and most sensible of our pressures.—Condensed from John Donne.

Verse 8.—“I will guide thee with mine eye.” Marg., I will counsel thee, mine eye shall be upon thee. The margin expresses the sense of the Hebrew. The literal meaning is, “I will counsel thee; mine eye shall be upon thee.” De Wette: “my eye shall be directed towards thee.” The idea is that of one who is telling another what way he is to take in order that he may reach a certain place; and he says he will watch him, or will keep an eye upon him; he will not let him go wrong.—Albert Barnes.

Verse 8.—“Mine eye.” We may consider mercies as the beamings of the Almighty’s eye when the light of his countenance is lifted up upon us; and that man as guided by the eye, whom mercies attract and attach to his Maker. But oh! let us refuse to be guided by the eye, and it will become needful that we be curbed with the hand. If we abuse our mercies, if we forget their Author, and yield him not gratefully the homage of our affections, we do but oblige him, by his love for our souls, to apportion us disaster and trouble. Complain not, then, that there is so much of sorrow in your lot; but consider rather how much of it you may have wilfully brought upon yourselves. Listen to the voice of God. “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye”—mine eye, whose glance gilds all that is beautiful, whose light disperses all darkness prevents all danger, diffuses all happiness. And why, then, is it that ye are sorely disquieted? why is it that “fear and the pit” are so often upon you; that one blessing after another disappears from your circle; and that God seems to deal with you as with the wayward and unruly, on whom any thing of gentleness would be altogether lost? Ah! if you would account for many mercies that have departed, if you would insure permanence to those that are yet left, examine how deficient you may hitherto have been, and strive to be more diligent for the future, in obeying an admonition which implies that we should be guided by the soft lustres of the eye, if our obduracy did not render indispensible the harsh constraints of the rein.—Henry Melvill.

Verse 9.—“Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule,” etc. How many run mad of this cause, inordinate and furious lusts! The prophet Jeremiah, chap. ii. 24, compareth Israel to “a swift dromedary, traversing her ways,” and to a “wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure.” “Be ye not,” saith the Psalmographer, “as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle.” Men have understanding, not beasts; yet when the frenzy of lust overwhelmeth their senses, we may take up the word of the prophet and pour it on them: “Every man is a beast by his own knowledge.” And therefore “man that is in honour and understandeth not, is like unto beasts that perish” (Ps. xlix. 20). Did not the bridle of God’s overruling providence restrain their madness, they would cast off the saddle of reason, and kick nature itself in the face.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 9.—“Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule,” etc. According to the several natures of these two beasts, the fathers and other expositors have made several interpretations; at least, several allusions. They consider the horse and the mule to admit any rider, any burden, without discretion or difference, without debatement or consideration; they never ask whether their rider be noble or base, nor whether their load be gold for the treasure, or roots for the market. And those expositors find the same indifference in an habitual sinner to any kind of sin; whether he sin for pleasure, or sin for profit, or sin but for company, still he sins. They consider in the mule, that one of his parents being more ignoble than the other, he is likest the worst, he hath more of the ass than of the horse in him; and they find in us, that all our actions and thoughts taste more of the ignobler part of earth than of heaven. St. Hierome thinks fierceness and rashness to be presented in the horse, and sloth in the mule. And St. Augustine carries these two qualities far; he thinks that in this fierceness of the horse the Gentiles are represented, which ran far from the knowledge of Christianity; and by the laziness of the mule the Jews, who came nothing so fast, as they were invited by their former helps to the embracing thereof. They have gone far in these allusions and applications; and they might have gone as far further as it had pleased them; they have sea-room enough, that will compare a beast and a sinner together; and they shall find many times, in the way, the beast the better man.—John Donne.

Verse 9.—“Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule,” etc. Consider the causes why a broken leg is incurable in a horse, and easily curable in a man. The horse is incapable of counsel to submit himself to the farrier; and therefore in case his leg be set he flings, flounces, and flies out, unjointing it again by his misemployed mettle, counting all binding to be shackles and fetters unto him: whereas a man willingly resigns himself to be ordered by the surgeon, preferring rather to be a prisoner for some days, than a cripple all his life. “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding;” but “let patience have its perfect work in thee.” James i. 4.—Thomas Fuller.

Verse 9.—“Bit and bridle.” מֶתֶג־וָרֶסֶן. The LXX render the first of these two words by χαλινῷ, the second by κημῷ. The word χαλινός signifies the iron of the common bridle, which is put into the horse’s mouth, the bit, or curb. But κημός was something like a muzzle, which was put upon mischievous horses or mules to hinder them from biting. Xenophon says, that it allowed them to breathe, but kept the mouth shut, so that they could not bite. Not knowing the term of art for this contrivance, I call it a muzzle. The verb קְרֹב is a military term, and signifies to advance, as an enemy, to attack. The “coming near,” therefore, intended here, is a coming near to do mischief. The admonition given by the Psalmist to his companions, is to submit to the instruction and guidance graciously promised from heaven, and not to resemble, in a refractory disposition, those ill-conditioned colts which are not to be governed by a simple bridle; but, unless their jaws are confined by a muzzle, will attack the rider as he attempts to mount, or the groom as he leads them to the pasture and the stable.—Samuel Horsley.

Verse 9.—“Lest they come near unto thee.” The common version of this clause would be suitable enough in speaking of a wild beast, but in reference to a mule or a horse the words can only mean, because they will not follow or obey thee of their own accord; they must be constantly coerced, in the way both of compulsion and restraint.—J. A. Alexander.

Verse 9.—“Be ye not like a horse or mule, which have no understanding, and whose ornament is a bridle and bit, to hold them: they do not come unto thee of themselves.”—Charles Carter, in “The Book of Psalms.” 1869. [A new Translation.]

Verse 10.—“He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.” Even as in the midst of the sphere is the centre, from which all lines being drawn do tend towards their circumference: so a good Christian man hath God for his circumference; for whatever he thinketh, speaketh, or doth, it tendeth to Christ, of whom he is compassed round about.—Robert Cawdray.

Verse 10.—“Mercy shall compass him about.” He shall be surrounded with mercy—as one is surrounded by the air, or by the sunlight. He shall find mercy and favour everywhere—at home, abroad; by day, by night; in society, in solitude; in sickness, in health; in life, in death; in time, in eternity. He shall walk amidst mercies; he shall die amidst mercies; he shall live in a better world in the midst of eternal mercies.—Albert Barnes.

Verse 10.—“Mark that text,” said Richard Adkins to his grandson Abel, who was reading to him the thirty-second Psalm. “Mark that text, ‘He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.’ I read it in my youth and believed it; and now I read it in my old age, thank God, I know it to be true. Oh! it is a blessed thing in the midst of the joys and sorrows of the world, Abel, to trust in the Lord.”—The Christian Treasury, 1848.

Verse 11.—“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.” This exhortation containeth three parts. First, what he doth exhort unto, to rejoice. Secondly, whom, the righteous, and upright men. Thirdly, the limitation, “in the Lord.” He exhorteth them three times—be glad, rejoice, and be joyful; and as he made mention of a threefold blessing, so doth he of a threefold joy. Wherein we have two things necessary to be observed. First, the dulness of our natures, who as slow horses need many spurs and provocations to spiritual things, whereas we are naturally overmuch bent to carnal things, that we need no incitations thereunto. But by the contrary in spiritual things, we are cast into a deep sleep, who cannot be awakened at the first cry; but as men after drink have need to be roused often, that they may behold the light; so men drunken with the pleasures of sin, as Nazianzen saith, must be wakened by divers exhortations; as this same prophet in the subsequent Psalm redoubleth his exhortations for the same effect. And the apostle to Philippians saith: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (chap. iv. 4). Next, perceive that this exhortation grows; for the word be glad, properly in the original signifieth an inward and hearty joy, by the presence or hope at least of a thing desirable or good. The word rejoice, to express our joy by some outward gesture, sometimes used for dancing, as, “The hills skip for gladness.” Ps. lxv. 12. The word be joyful, to cry for gladness, as the dumb man’s tongue shall sing. This gradation teacheth us, that this is the nature of spiritual joy—that it still increaseth in us by certain degrees, until it come to the perfection of all joy, which is signified by the last word, importing, as it were, a triumph and shouting after victory. So that they are truly penitent who have overcome sin and Satan in their spiritual combat, and have triumphed over them as vanquished enemies.—Archibald Symson.

Verse 11.—“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous.” There is never a joyful man alive but a believer. Will you say that men take pleasure in their sins? Why, that is the Devil’s joy; or that they rejoice in full barns and bags? That is the fool’s joy; or that they rejoice in wine, that is, all dainties that gratify the palate? That is a Bedlam joy. Read and believe Eccl. ii. 3; indeed, from the first verse to the eleventh, the whole book, but especially that chapter, is the divinest philosophy that ever was or will be.—Christopher Fowler (1610-1678), in “Morning Exercises.”

Verse 11.—“Shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart,” When the poet Carpani enquired of his friend Haydn, how it happened that his church music was so cheerful, the great composer made a most beautiful reply. “I cannot,” he said, “make it otherwise, I write according to the thoughts I feel: when I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen: and, since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I serve him with a cheerful spirit.”—John Whitecross’s Anecdotes.

Verse 11.—Here the sensual man, that haply would catch hold when it is said, “Rejoice,” by-and-by, when it is added, “in the Lord,” will let his hold go. But they that, by reason of the billows and waves of the troublesome sea of this world, cannot brook the speech when it is said, “Rejoice,” are to lay sure hold fast upon it when it is added, “Rejoice in the Lord.”—Henry Airay.

Verse 11.

O sing unto this glittering, glorious King; O praise his name, let every living thing; Let heart and voice, like bells of silver ring The comfort that this day doth bring.

Kinwellmersh, quoted by A. Moody Stuart.

Verse 11.—It is storied by the famous Tully concerning Syracuse, that there is no day throughout the whole year so stormy and tempestuous in which the inhabitants have not some glimpse and sight of the sun. The like observation may be truly made on all those Psalms of David in which his complaints are most multiplied, his fears and pressures most insisted on; that there is not any of them so totally overcast with the black darkness of despair, but that we may easily discern them to be here and there intervened and streaked with some comfortable expressions of his faith and hope in God. If in the beginning of a Psalm we find him restless in his motions, like Noah’s dove upon the overspreading waters; yet in the close we shall see him like the same dove returning with an olive branch in its mouth, and fixing upon the ark. If we find him in another Psalm staggering in the midst of his distresses, through the prevalency of carnal fears, we may also in it behold him recovering himself again, by fetching arguments from faith, whose topics are of a higher elevation than to be shaken by the timorous suggestions that arise from the flesh. If at another time we behold him like to a boat on drift, that is, tossed and beaten by the inconstant winds and fierce waves; yet we shall still find all his rollings and agitations to be such as carry him towards the standing shore, where he rides at last both in peace and safety.—William Spurstowe.