Verse 1. It will
be well to remember that this psalm was sung at the Passover, and therefore it
bears relationship to the deliverance from Egypt. The burden of it seems to be
a prayer that the living God, who had been so glorious at the Red Sea and at
the Jordan, should again for his own name’s sake display the wonders of his
power. Not unto us, O Lord, but
unto thy name give the glory. The people undoubtedly wished for relief from
the contemptuous insults of idolaters, but their main desire was that Jehovah
himself should no longer be the object of heathen insults. The saddest part of
all their trouble was that their God was no longer feared and dreaded by their
adversaries. When Israel marched into Canaan, a terror was upon all the people
round about, because of Jehovah, the mighty God; but this dread the nations had
shaken off since there had been of late no remarkable display of miraculous
power. Therefore Israel cried unto her God that he would again make bare his
arm as in the day when he cut Rahab and wounded the dragon. The prayer is
evidently tinctured with a consciousness of unworthiness; because of their past
unfaithfulness they hardly dared to appeal to the covenant, and to ask
blessings for themselves, but they fell back upon the honor of the Lord their God—an
old style of argument which their great lawgiver, Moses, had used with such
effect when he pleaded, “Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For
mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume
them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this
evil against thy people.” Joshua also used the like argument when he said,
“What wilt thou do unto thy great name?” In such manner also let us pray when
no other plea is available because of our sense of sin; for the Lord is always
jealous of his honor, and will work for his name’s sake when no other motive
will move him.
The repetition of the words Not unto us would seem to
indicate a very serious desire to renounce any glory which they might at any
time have proudly appropriated to themselves, and it also sets forth the
vehemence of their wish that God would at any cost to them magnify his own
name. They loathed the idea of seeking their own glory, and rejected the
thought with the utmost detestation, again and again disclaiming any
self-glorifying motive in their supplications. For thy mercy, and for thy
truth’s sake. These attributes seemed most in jeopardy. How could the
heathen think Jehovah to be a merciful God if he gave his people over to the
hands of their enemies? How could they believe him to be faithful and true if,
after all his solemn covenant engagements, he utterly rejected his chosen
nation? God is very jealous of the two glorious attributes of grace and truth,
and the plea that these may not be dishonored has great weight with him. In
these times, when the first victories of the Gospel are only remembered as
histories of a dim and distant past, skeptics are apt to boast that the Gospel
has lost its youthful strength, and they even presume to cast a slur upon the
name of God himself. We may therefore rightly entreat the divine interposition
that the apparent blot may be removed from his escutcheon, and that his own
word may shine forth gloriously as in the days of old. We may not desire the
triumph of our opinions, for our own sakes, or for the honor of a sect, but we
may confidently pray for the triumph of truth, that God himself may be honored.
Verse 2. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their
God? Or, more literally, “Where, pray,
is their God?” Why should the nations be allowed with a sneer of contempt to
question the existence, and mercy, and faithfulness of Jehovah? They are always
ready to blaspheme; we may well pray that they may not derive a reason for so
doing from the course of providence, or the decline of the church. When they
see the godly down-trodden while they themselves live at ease, and act the part
of persecutors, they are very apt to speak as if they had triumphed over God
himself, or as if he had altogether left the field of action and deserted his
saints. When the prayers and tears of the godly seem to be unregarded, and
their miseries are rather increased than assuaged, then do the wicked multiply
their taunts and jeers, and even argue that their own wretched irreligion is
better than the faith of Christians, because for the present their condition is
so much preferable to that of the afflicted saints. And, truly, this is the
very sting of the trials of God’s chosen when they see the veracity of the Lord
questioned, and the name of God profaned because of their sufferings. If they
could hope that some good result would come out of all this they would endure
it with patience; but as they are unable to perceive any desirable result
consequent thereon, they inquire with holy anxiety, “Wherefore should the
heathen be permitted to speak thus?” It is a question to which it would be
hard to reply, and yet no doubt there is an answer. Sometimes the nations are
permitted thus to blaspheme in order that they may fill up the measure of their
iniquity, and in order that the subsequent interposition of God may be rendered
the more illustrious in contrast with their profane blessings. Do they say,
“Where is now their God?” They will know by-and-by, for it is written, “I
will ease me of mine adversaries”; they will know it also when the righteous
“shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Do they say, “Where
is the promise of his coming?” That coming will be speedy and terrible to
them. In our own case, by our own lukewarmness and the neglect of faithful
Gospel preaching, we have permitted the uprise and spread of modern doubt, and
we are bound to confess it with deep sorrow of soul; yet we may not therefore
lose heart, but may still plead with God to save his own truth and grace from
the contempt of the world. Our honor and the honor of the church are small
barriers, but the glory of God is the jewel of the universe, of which all else
is but the setting; and we may come to the Lord and plead his jealousy for his
name, being well assured that he will not let that name be dishonored. Let us
by extraordinary intercession prevail upon him to interpose, by giving to his
Gospel such a triumphant vindication as shall utterly silence the perverse
opposition of the ungodly.
Verse 3. But our God is in the heavens—where he should be; above the reach of mortal sneers,
overhearing all the vain janglings of people, but looking down with silent
scorn upon the makers of the babel. Supreme above all opposing powers, the Lord
reigns upon a throne high and lifted up. Incomprehensible in essence, he rises
above the loftiest thought of the wise; absolute in will and infinite in power,
he is superior to the limitations which belong to earth and time. This God is our
God, and we are not ashamed to own him, albeit he may not work miracles at the
beck and call of every vainglorious boaster who may choose to challenge him.
He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Up till this moment his decrees have been fulfilled, and
his eternal purposes accomplished; he has not been asleep, nor oblivious of
human affairs; he has worked, and he has worked effectually; none have been
able to thwart, nor even so much as to hinder him. However distasteful to his
enemies, the Lord has accomplished all his good pleasure without difficulty;
even when his adversaries raved and raged against him they have been compelled
to carry out his designs against their will.
Verse 4. Their idols are silver and gold, mere dead inert matter; at the best only made of precious metals,
but that metal quite as powerless as the commonest wood or clay. The value of
the idol shows the folly of the maker in wasting his substance, but certainly
does not increase the power of the image, since there is no more life in silver
and gold than in brass or iron. The work of men’s hands. Inasmuch as the
maker is always greater than the thing that he has made, these idols are less
to be honored than the artificers, who fashioned them. How irrational that
people should adore that which is less than themselves! Our God is a spirit,
and his hands made the heavens and the earth: well may we worship him, and we
need not be disturbed at the sneering question of those who are so proud as to
refuse to adore the living God, and yet bow their knees before images of their
own carving. We may make an application of all this to the times in which we
are now living. The god of modern thought is the creation of the thinker
himself, evolved out of his own consciousness, or fashioned according to his
own notion of what a god should be. Now, it is evident that such a being is no
god. It is impossible that there should be a god at all except the God of
revelation. A god who can be fashioned by our own thoughts is no more a god
than the image manufactured or produced by our own hands. The true God must of
necessity be his own revealer.
Verse 5. They have mouths, but they speak not. The idols cannot utter even the faintest sound; they cannot
communicate with their worshipers; they can neither promise nor threaten,
command nor console, explain the past nor prophesy the future. Eyes have
they, but they see not. They cannot tell who their worshipers may be or
what they offer. He must be very blind who worships a blind god; we pity
a blind man; it is strange to worship a blind image.
Verse 6. They have ears, but they hear not. The psalmist might have pointed to the monstrous ears with
which some heathen deities are disfigured—truly they have ears, but no
prayer can ever be heard by them. How can gold and silver hear, and how can a
rational being address petitions to one who cannot even hear his words? Noses
have they, but they smell not. The psalmist seems to heap together these
sentences with something of the grim sardonic spirit of Elijah when he said,
“Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is
on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.” In sacred
scorn he mocks at those who burn spices and fill their temples with clouds of
smoke offered to an image who nose cannot perceive the perfume.
Verse 7. They have hands, but they handle not. They cannot receive that which is handed to them, they
cannot grasp the scepter of power of the sword of vengeance, they can neither
distribute benefits nor dispense judgments, and the most trifling act they are
utterly unable to perform. An infant’s hand excels them in power. Feet have
they, but they walk not. They must be lifted into their places or they
would never reach their shrines; they must be fastened in their shrines or they
would fall; they must be carried or they could never move; they cannot come to
the rescue of their friends, nor escape the iconoclasm of their foes. The
meanest insect has more power of locomotion than the greatest heathen god. Neither
speak they through their throat. They cannot even reach so far as the
guttural noise of the lowest order of beasts. Their priests asserted that the
images of the gods upon special occasions uttered hollow sounds, but it was a
mere pretense, or a crafty artifice.
Verse 8. They that make them are like unto them. Those who make such things for worship are as stupid,
senseless, and irrational as the figures they construct. So far as any
spiritual life, thought, and judgment are concerned, they are rather the images
of men than rational beings. The censure is by no means too severe. So is
every one that trusteth in them. Those who have sunk so low as to be
capable of confiding in idols have reached the extreme of folly, and are worthy
of as much contempt as their detestable deities.
The god of modern thought exceedingly resembles the deities
described in this psalm. Pantheism is wondrously akin to polytheism, and yet
differs very little from atheism. The god manufactured by our great thinkers is
a mere abstraction; he has no eternal purposes, he does not interpose on the
behalf of his people, he cares but very little as to how much man sins, for he
has given to the initiated “a larger hope” by which the most incorrigible are
to be restored. He is what the last set of critics chooses to make him, he has
said what they choose to say, and he will do what they please to prescribe. Let
this creed and its devotees alone, and they will work out their own refutation,
for as now their god is fashioned like themselves, they will by degrees fashion
themselves like their god; and when the principles of justice, law, and order
have all been effectually sapped we may possibly witness in some form of
socialism a repetition of the evils which have in former ages befallen nations
which have refused the living God, and set up gods of their own.
Verse 9. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord. Whatever
others do, let the elect of heaven keep fast to the God who chose them. Jehovah
is the God of Jacob; let his children prove their loyalty to their God by their
confidence in him. Whatever our trouble may be, and however fierce the
blasphemous language of our enemies, let us not fear nor falter, but
confidently rest in him who is able to vindicate his own honor, and protect his
own servants. He is their help and their shield. He is the friend of his
servants, both actively and passively, giving them both aid in labor and
defense in danger. In the use of the pronoun their, the psalmist may
have spoken to himself in a sort of soliloquy: he had given the exhortation to
trust in Jehovah, and then he whispers to himself, “They may well do so, for
he is at all times the strength and security of his servants.”
Verse 10. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. You who
are nearest to him, trust him most; your very calling is connected with his
truth and is meant to declare his glory; therefore never entertain a doubt
concerning him, but lead the way in holy confidence. The priests were the
leaders, teachers, and exemplars of the people, and above all others they
should place an unreserved reliance upon Israel’s God. The psalmist is glad to
add that they did so, for he says, He is their help and their shield. It
is good to exhort those to faith who have faith. We may stir up pure minds by
way of remembrance, and exhort people to trust because we know they are
trusting already.
Verse 11. The next
verse is of the same tenor—Ye that fear the Lord,
trust in the Lord. Whether
belonging to Israel, or to the house of Aaron, or not, all those who reverence
Jehovah are permitted and commanded to confide in him. He is their help and
their shield. He does aid and protect all those who worship him in filial
fear, to whatever nation they may belong. No doubt these repeated exhortations
were rendered necessary by the trying condition in which the children of Israel
were found: the sneers of the adversary would assail all the people; they would
most bitterly be felt by the priests and ministers, and those who were secret
proselytes would groan in secret under the contempt forced upon their religion
and their God. All this would be very staggering to faith, and therefore they
were bidden again and again to trust in Jehovah.
Verse 12. The Lord
hath been mindful of us, or
“Jehovah hath remembered us.” His past mercies prove that we are on his
heart, and though for the present he may afflict us, yet he does not forget us.
We have not to put him in remembrance as though he found it hard to recollect
his children, but he hath remembered us and therefore he will in future deal
well with us. He will bless us. The word us is supplied by the
translators, and is superfluous; the passage should run, “He will bless; he
will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron.” The
repetition of the word bless adds great effect to the passage. The Lord
has many blessings, each one worthy to be remembered. Where he has once
bestowed his favor he continues it; his blessing delights to visit the same
house very often and to abide where it has once lodged. Blessing does not
impoverish the Lord: he has multiplied his mercies in the past, and he will
pour them forth thick and threefold in the future. He will have a general
blessing for all who fear him, a special blessing for the whole house of
Israel, and a double blessing for the sons of Aaron. It is his nature to bless,
it is his prerogative to bless, it is his glory to bless, it is his delight to
bless; he has promised to bless, and therefore be sure of this, that he will
bless without ceasing.
Verse 13. So long
as a man fears the Lord it matters nothing whether he be prince or peasant,
patriarch or pauper—God will assuredly bless him. He supplies the want of every
living thing, from the leviathan of the sea to the insect upon a leaf, and he
will let none of the godly be forgotten, however small their abilities, or mean
their position. This is a sweet cordial for those who are little in faith, and
own themselves to be babes in the family of grace. There is the same blessing
for the least as for the greatest; if anything, the small will be first;
for as the necessity is more pressing, the supply will be more speedy.
Verse 14. Just as
in Egypt he multiplied the people exceedingly, so will he increase the number
of his saints upon the earth; not only will the faithful be blessed with
converts, and so with a spiritual seed; but those who are their spiritual
children will become fruitful also, and thus the multitude of the elect will be
accomplished; God will increase the people, and will increase the joy. Even to
the end of the ages the race of true believers will be continued, and will
growingly multiply in number and in power. The first blessing upon mankind was,
“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth”; and it is this blessing
which God now pronounces upon them that fear him. Despite the idols of
philosophy and sacramentarianism, the truth will gather its disciples, and fill
the land with its defenders.
Verse 15. This is
another form of the blessing of Melchizedek; upon us through our great
Melchizedek this same benediction rests. It is an omnipotent blessing,
conveying to us all that an almighty God can do, whether in heaven or on earth.
This fullness is infinite, and the consolation which it brings is unfailing; he
that made heaven and earth can give us all things while we dwell below, and
bring us safely to his palace above. Happy are the people upon whom such a
blessing rests; their portion is infinitely above that of those whose only hope
lies in a piece of gilded wood, or an image of sculptured stone.
Verse 16. The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s. There he specially reigns, and manifests his greatness and
his glory: but the earth hath he given to the children of men. He has
left the world during the present dispensation in a great measure under the power
and will of men, so that things are not here below in the same perfect order as
the things which are above. It is true that the Lord rules over all things by
his providence, but yet he allows and permits men to break his laws and
persecute his people for the time being, and to set up their dumb idols in
opposition to him. The free agency which he gave to his creatures necessitated
that in some degree he should restrain his power and let the children of men
follow their own devices; yet nevertheless, since he has not vacated heaven, he
is still master of earth, and can at any time gather up all the reins into his
own hands. Perhaps, however, the passage is meant to have another meaning,
namely, that God will increase his people, because he has given the earth to
them, and intends that they shall fill it. Man was constituted originally God’s
vicegerent over the world, and though as yet we see not all things put under
him, we see Jesus exalted on high, and in him the children of men will receive
a loftier dominion even on earth than as yet they have known. “The meek shall
inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace”;
and our Lord Jesus will reign amongst his ancients gloriously. All this will
reflect the exceeding glory of him who reveals himself personally in heaven,
and in the mystical body of Christ below. The earth belongs to the sons of God,
and we are bound to subdue it for our Lord Jesus, for he must reign. The Lord
has given him the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for his possession.
Verse 17. The dead praise not the Lord—so far as this world is concerned. They cannot unite in the
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with which the church delights to adore
her Lord. The preacher cannot magnify the Lord from his coffin, nor the
Christian worker further manifest the power of divine grace by daily activity
while he lies in the grave. Neither any that go down into silence. The
tomb sends forth no voice; from moldering bones and flesh-consuming worms there
arises no sound of Gospel ministry nor of gracious song. One by one the singers
in the consecrated choir of saints steal away from us, and we miss their music.
Thank God, they have gone above to swell the harmonies of the skies, but as far
as we are concerned, we have need to sing all the more earnestly because so
many songsters have left our choirs.
Verse 18. But we will bless the Lord
from this time forth and for evermore.
We who are still living will take care that the praises of God will not fail.
Our afflictions and depressions of spirit will not cause us to suspend our
praises; neither shall old age nor even death itself cause us to cease from the
occupation. The spiritually dead cannot praise God, but the life within us
constrains us to do so. The ungodly may abide in silence, but we will lift up
our voices to the praise of Jehovah. Even though for a time he may work no
miracle, and we may see no special interposition of his power, yet on the
strength of what he has done in ages past we will continue to laud his name
“until the day break,” when he will once more gladden the faces of his
children. The present time is auspicious for commencing a life of praise, since
today he bids us hear his voice of mercy. From this time forth is the
suggestion of wisdom, for this duty ought not to be delayed; and it is the
dictate of gratitude. Once begin praising God and we have entered upon an
endless service. Even eternity cannot exhaust the reasons why God should be
glorified. Praise the Lord, or
Hallelujah. Though the dead cannot, and the wicked will not, and the careless
do not praise God, yet we will shout “Hallelujah” forever.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
