1. In thee, O Lord,
do I put my trust. Nowhere else do I fly for shelter,
let the tempest howl as it may. The psalmist has one refuge, and that the best
one. He casts out the great sheet anchor of his faith in the time of storm. No
mention is made of merit, but faith relies upon divine favor and faithfulness,
and upon that alone. Let me never be ashamed. How can the Lord let the
man be ultimately put to shame who depends alone upon him? This would not be
dealing like a God of truth and grace. It would bring dishonor upon God himself
if faith were not in the end rewarded. Deliver me in thy righteousness.
Thou art not unjust to desert a trustful soul, or to break thy promises; thou
wilt vindicate the righteousness of thy mysterious providence, and give me
joyful deliverance. How sweetly the declaration of faith in this first verse
sounds, if we read it at the foot of the cross, beholding the promise of the
Father as yea and amen through the Son; viewing God with faith’s eye as he
stands revealed in Jesus crucified.
2. Bow down thine ear to me. Condescend to my low estate; listen to me attentively as
one who would hear every word. Heaven with its transcendent glories of harmony
might well engross the divine ear, but yet the Lord has an hourly regard to the
weakest moanings of his poorest people. Deliver me speedily. We must not
set times and seasons, yet in submission we may ask for swift as well as sure
mercy. God’s mercies are often enhanced in value by the timely haste which he
uses in their bestowal; if they came late they might be too late—but he rides
upon a cherub, and flies upon the wings of the wind when he intends the good of
his beloved. Be thou my strong rock. Be my Engedi. For an house of
defense to save me, wherein I may dwell in safety, not merely
running to thee for temporary shelter, but abiding in thee for eternal
salvation. How very simply does the good man pray, and yet with what weight of
meaning! He uses no ornamental flourishes, he is too deeply in earnest to be
otherwise than plain; it were well if all who engage in public prayer would
observe the same rule.
3. For thou art my rock and my fortress. Here the tried soul avows yet again its full confidence in
God. Faith’s repetitions are not vain. The avowal of our reliance upon God in
times of adversity is a principal method of glorifying him. Active service is
good, but the passive confidence of faith is not one jot less esteemed in the
sight of God. The words before us appear to embrace and fasten upon the Lord
with a grip of faith which is not to be relaxed. The two personal pronouns,
like sure nails, lay hold upon the faithfulness of the Lord. O for grace to
have our heart fixed in firm unstaggering belief in God! Note the singular fact
that David asked the Lord to be his rock (verse 2) because he was his rock;
and learn from it that we may pray to enjoy in experience what we grasp by
faith. Faith is the foundation of prayer. Therefore for thy name’s sake lead
me, and guide me. The psalmist argues like a logician with his fors and
therefores. Since I do sincerely trust thee, he says, O my God, be my director.
To lead and to guide are two things very like each other, but patient thought
will detect different shades of meaning, especially as the last may mean provide
for me. The double word indicates an urgent need—we require double
direction, for we are fools, and the way is rough. Lead me as a soldier, guide
me as a traveler! The argument used is one which is fetched from the armory of
free grace: not for my own sake, but for thy name’s sake guide me.
4. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for
me. The enemies of David were cunning
as well as mighty. If they could not conquer him by power, they would capture
him by craft. Our own spiritual foes are of the same order—they are of the
serpent’s brood, and seek to ensnare us by their guile. The prayer before us
supposes the possibility of the believer being caught like a bird; and, indeed,
we are so foolish that this often happens. It may need a sharp pull to
save a soul from the net of temptation, and a mighty pull to extricate
someone from the snares of malicious cunning, but the Lord is equal to every
emergency, and the most skillfully placed nets of the hunter will never be able
to hold his chosen ones. For thou art my strength. What an inexpressible
sweetness is to be found in these few words! How joyfully may we enter upon
labors, and how cheerfully may we endure sufferings when we can lay hold on
celestial power. If by faith we are depending alone on the strong God of
Israel, we may use our holy reliance as a plea in supplication.
5. Into thine hand I commit my spirit. These living words of David were our Lord’s dying words,
and have been frequently used by holy men in their hour of departure. Be
assured that they are good, choice, wise, and solemn words; we may use them now
and in the last tremendous hour. Observe, the object of the good man’s
solicitude in life and death is not his body or his estate, but his spirit;
this is his jewel, his secret treasure; if this be safe, all is well. Thou
hast redeemed me, O God of truth. Redemption is a solid basis for
confidence. David had not known Calvary as we have done, but temporal
redemption cheered him; and shall not eternal redemption yet more sweedy
console us? Past deliverances are strong pleas for present assistance.
6. I have hated them that regard lying vanities. Those who will not lean upon the true arm of strength are
sure to make to themselves vain confidences. Man must have a god, and if he
will not adore the only living and true God, he makes a fool of himself, and
pays superstitious regard to a lie, and waits with anxious hope upon a base
delusion. Those who did this were none of David’s friends; he had a constant
dislike to them: the verb includes the present as well as the past tense. He
hated them for hating God; he would not endure idolaters; his heart was set
against them for their stupidity and wickedness. Those who make gods of their
riches, their persons, their wits, or anything else are to be shunned by those
whose faith rests upon God in Christ Jesus; so far from being envied, they are
to be pitied as depending upon utter vanities. But I trust in the Lord. This might be very
unfashionable, but the psalmist dared to be singular. Bad example should not
make us less decided for the truth, but the rather in the midst of general
defection we should grow the more bold.
7. I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy. For mercy past he is grateful, and for mercy future, which
he believingly anticipates, he is joyful. In our most importunate
intercessions, we must find breathing time to bless the Lord: praise is never a
hindrance to prayer, but rather a lively refreshment therein. Those two words, glad
and rejoice, are an instructive reduplication: we need not stint
ourselves in our holy triumph; this wine we may drink in bowls without fear of
excess. For thou hast considered my trouble. Thou hast seen it, weighed
it, directed it, fixed a bound to it, and in all ways made it a matter of
tender consideration. A man’s consideration means the full exercise of his
mind; what must God’s consideration be? Thou hast known my soul in
adversities. God owns his saints when others are ashamed to acknowledge
them; he never refuses to know his friends. Moreover, the Lord Jesus knows us
in our pangs in a peculiar sense, by having a deep sympathy towards us in them
all; when no others can enter into our griefs, from want of understanding them
in experience, Jesus dives into the lowest depths with us, comprehending the
direst of our woes, because he has felt the same. Jesus is a physician who
knows every case; nothing is new to him. When we are so bewildered as not to
know our own state, he knows us altogether. He has known us and will know us: O
for grace to know more of him! “Man, know thyself” is a good philosophic
precept, but “Man, thou art known of God” is a superlative consolation. Adversities
is in the plural—“Many are the afflictions of the righteous.”
8. And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. To be shut up in one’s hand is to be delivered over
absolutely to his power; now, the believer is not in the hand of death or the
devil, much less is he in the power of man. The enemy may get a temporary
advantage over us, but we are like men in prison with the door open; God will
not let us be shut up, he always provides a way of escape. Thou hast set my
feet in a large room. Blessed be God for liberty: civil liberty is
valuable, religious liberty is precious, spiritual liberty is priceless. In all
troubles we may praise God if these are left. Many saints have had their
greatest enlargements of soul when their affairs have been in the greatest
straits. Their souls have been in a large room when their bodies have been lying
in some narrow dungeon. Grace has been equal to every emergency; and more than
this, it has made the emergency an opportunity for displaying itself.
9. Have mercy upon me, O Lord,
for I am in trouble. Now, the man of God comes to a
particular and minute description of his sorrowful case. He unburdens his
heart. This first sentence pithily comprehends all that follows; it is the text
for his lamenting discourse. Misery moves mercy—no more reasoning is needed. Have
mercy is the prayer; the argument is as prevalent as it is plain and
personal, I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief. Dim and
sunken eyes are plain indications of failing health. Tears draw their salt from
our strength, and floods of them are very apt to consume the source from which
they spring. God would have us tell him the symptoms of our disease, not for
his information, but to show our sense of need. Yea, my soul and my belly
(or body). Soul and body are so intimately united that one cannot
decline without the other feeling it. We, in these days, are not strangers to
the double sinking which David describes; we have been faint with physical
suffering, and distracted with mental distress: when two such seas meet, it is
well for us that the Pilot at the helm is at home in the midst of the
waterfloods, and makes storms to become the triumph of his art.
10. For my life spent with grief, and my years with
sighing. It had become his daily occupation
to mourn; he spent all his days in the dungeon of distress. My strength
faileth because of mine iniquity. David sees to the bottom of his sorrow,
and detects sin lurking there. It is profitable trouble which leads us to
trouble ourselves about our iniquity.
11. I was a reproach among all mine enemies. They were pleased to have something to throw at me: my
mournful estate was music to them, because they maliciously interpreted it to
be a judgment from heaven upon me. Reproach is little thought of by those who
are not called to endure it, but he who passes under its lash knows how deep it
wounds. The best of us may have the bitterest foes, and be subjected to the
most cruel taunts. But especially among my neighbors. Those who are
nearest can stab the sharpest. And a fear to mine acquaintance. The more
intimate before, the more distant did they become. Our Lord was denied by
Peter, betrayed by Judas, and forsaken by all in his utmost need. They that
did see me without fled from me. Afraid to be seen in the company of a man
so thoroughly despised, those who once courted his society hastened from him as
though he had been infected with the plague.
12. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind. All David’s youthful prowess was now gone from remembrance:
he had been the saviour of his country, but his services were buried in
oblivion. Men soon forget the deepest obligations; popularity is evanescent to
the last degree. I am like a broken vessel, a thing useless, done for,
worthless, cast aside, forgotten. Sad condition for a king! Let us see herein
the portrait of the King of kings in his humiliation, when he made himself of
no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.
13. For I have heard the slander of many. One slanderous viper is death to all comfort—what must be
the venom of a whole brood? What the ear does not hear the heart does not rue;
but in David’s case the accusing voices were loud enough to break in upon his
quiet. Fear was on every side. He was encircled with fearful
suggestions, threatenings, remembrances, and forebodings; no quarter was clear
from incessant attack. While they took counsel together against me, they
devised to take away my life. The ungodly act in concert in their
onslaughts upon the excellent of the earth. Observe the cruelty of a good man’s
foes! They will be content with nothing less than his blood—for this they plot
and scheme. Yet in all this his faith did not fail him, nor did his God forsake
him. Here is encouragement for us.
14–18. In this
section of the psalm he renews his prayers, urging the same pleas as at first:
earnest wrestlers attempt over and over again the same means of gaining their
point.
14. But I trusted in thee, O Lord.
Notwithstanding all afflicting circumstances, David’s faith was not turned
aside from its object. I said, Thou art my God. He proclaimed aloud his
determined allegiance to Jehovah. He was no fair-weather believer; he could
hold his faith in a sharp frost, and wrap it about him as a garment fitted to
keep out all the ills of time. He who can say what David did need not envy
Cicero in his eloquence: Thou art my God has more sweetness in it than
any other utterance which human speech can frame. Note that this adhesive faith
is here mentioned as an argument with God to honor his own promise by sending a
speedy deliverance.
15. My times are in thy hand. The sovereign arbiter of destiny holds in his own power all
the issues of our life. Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from
them that persecute me. It is lawful to desire escape from persecution if
it be the Lord’s will; and when this may not be granted us in the form we
desire, sustaining grace will give us deliverance in another form, by enabling
us to laugh to scorn all the fury of the foe.
16. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant. Give me the sunshine of heaven in my soul, and I will defy
the tempests of earth. Permit me to enjoy a sense of thy favor, O Lord, and a
consciousness that thou art pleased with my manner of life, and all men may
frown and slander as they will. Save me for thy mercies’ sake. The good
man knows no plea but mercy; whoever might urge legal pleas, David never
dreamed of it.
17. Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for I have called upon thee. Do not fill profane mouths with jeers at my confidence in
my God. Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.
Cause them to their amazement to see my wrongs righted and their own pride
horribly confounded.
18. Let the lying lips be put to silence. A right good and Christian prayer; who but a bad man would
give liars more license than need he? May God silence them either by leading
them to repentance, by putting them to thorough shame, or by placing them in
positions where what they may say will stand for nothing. Which speak
grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. The sin
of slanderers lies partly in the matter of their speech—they speak grievous
things—things wounding good people sorely in that tender place, their
reputations. The sin is further enhanced by the manner of their speech; they
speak proudly and contemptuously; they talk as if they themselves were the
cream of society, and the righteous the mere scum of vulgarity. Proud thoughts
of self are generally attended by debasing estimates of others.
19–22. Being
full of faith, the psalmist gives glory to God for the mercy which he is
assured will be his position.
19. Oh how great is thy goodness. Is it not singular to find such a joyful sentence in
connection with so much sorrow? Truly the life of faith is a miracle. When
faith led David to his God, she set him singing at once. He does not tell us
how great was God’s goodness, for he could not; there are no measures which can
set forth the immeasurable goodness of Jehovah, who is goodness itself. If we
cannot measure we can marvel; and though we may not calculate with accuracy, we
can adore with fervency. Which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee.
The psalmist in contemplation divides goodness into two parts, that which is in
store and that which is wrought out. The Lord has laid up in reserve for his
people supplies beyond all count. In the treasury of the covenant, in the field
of redemption, in the caskets of the promises, in the granaries of providence,
the Lord has provided for all the needs which can possibly occur to his chosen.
Which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men.
Heavenly mercy is not all hidden in the storehouse; in a thousand ways it has
already revealed itself on behalf of those who are bold to avow their
confidence in God; before their fellows this goodness of the Lord has been
displayed, that a faithless generation might stand rebuked.
20. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from
the pride of man. Pride is a barbed weapon: the proud
man’s contumely is iron which entered into the soul; but those who trust in God
are safely housed in the Holy of Holies, the innermost court, into which no one
may dare intrude; which pride cannot disturb. Dwellers at the foot of the cross
of Christ grow callous to the sneers of the haughty. The wounds of Jesus
distill a balsam which heals all the scars which the jagged weapons of contempt
can inflict upon us; in fact, when armed with the same mind which was in Christ
Jesus, the heart is invulnerable to all the darts of pride. Thou shalt keep
them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. Tongues are more to
be dreaded than beasts of prey—and when they strive, it is as though a whole
pack of wolves were let loose; but the believer is secure even in this peril,
for the royal pavilion of the King of kings will afford him quiet shelter and
serene security. The secret tabernacle of sacrifice, and the royal pavilion of
sovereignty afford a double security to the Lord’s people in their worst
distresses. Observe the immediate action of God, Thou shalt
hide, Thou shalt keep; the Lord himself is personally
present for the rescue of his afflicted.
21. Blessed be the Lord. When the Lord blesses us we cannot do less than bless him
in return. For he hath showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city.
Whether in cities or in hamlets our blessed Lord has revealed himself to us, we
shall never forget the hallowed spots: the lonely mount of Hermon, or the
village of Emmaus, or the rock of Patmos, or the wilderness of Horeb, are all
alike renowned when God manifests himself to us in robes of love.
22.
Confession of faults is always proper; and when we reflect upon the goodness of
God, we ought to be reminded of our own errors and offenses. For I said in
my haste. We generally speak amiss when we are in a hurry. Hasty words are
but for a moment on the tongue, but they often lie for years on the conscience.
I am cut off from before thine eyes. This was an unworthy speech; but
unbelief will have a corner in the heart of the firmest believer, and out of
that corner it will vent many spiteful things against the Lord if the course of
providence be not quite so smooth as nature might desire. No saint ever was, or
ever could be, cut off from before the eyes of God, and yet no doubt many have
thought so, and more than one have said so. Forever be such dark suspicions
banished from our minds. Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my
supplications when I cried unto thee. What a mercy that if we believe not,
yet God abideth faithful, hearing prayer even when we are laboring under doubts
which dishonor his name.
23. O love the Lord,
all ye his saints. A most affecting exhortation,
showing clearly the deep love of the writer to his God: there is the more
beauty in the expression, because it reveals love towards a smiting God, love
which many waters could not quench. To bless him who gives is easy, but to
cling to him who takes away is a work of grace. For the Lord preserveth the faithful. They
have to bide their time, but the recompense comes at last, and meanwhile all
the cruel malice of their enemies cannot destroy them. And plentifully
rewardeth the proud doer. This also is cause for gratitude: pride is so
detestable that he who metes out to it its righteous due deserves the love of
all holy minds.
24. Be of good courage.
Keep up your spirit; let no craven thoughts blanch your cheek. Fear weakens,
courage strengthens. Victory waits upon the banners of the brave. And he
shall strengthen your heart. Power from on high shall be given in the most
effectual manner by administering force to the fountain of vitality. So far
from leaving us, the Lord will draw very near to us in our adversity, and put
his own power into us. All ye that hope in the Lord. Every one of you, lift up your heads and sing for
joy of heart. God is faithful, and does not fail even his little children who
do but hope. Why then should we be afraid?
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
