1. I said.
I steadily resolved and registered a determination. In his great perplexity his
greatest fear was lest he should sin; and, therefore, he cast about for the
most likely method for avoiding it, and he determined to be silent. It is
excellent when a man can strengthen himself in a good course by the remembrance
of a well and wisely-formed resolve. I will take heed to my ways. To
avoid sin one needs to be very circumspect, and keep one’s actions as with a
garrison. Unguarded ways are generally unholy ones. In times of sickness or
other troubles we must watch against the sins peculiar to such trials,
especially against grumbling and repining. That I sin not with my tongue.
If believers utter hard words of God in times of depression, the ungodly will
take them up and use them as a justification for their sinful courses. I
will keep my mouth with a bridle, or more accurately with a muzzle, to stop
it altogether. When David went so far as to condemn himself to entire silence,
there must have been at least a little sullenness in his soul. In trying to
avoid one fault, he fell into another. To use the tongue against God is a sin
of commission, but not to use it at all involves an evident sin of omission. While
the wicked is before me. Bad men are so sure to misuse even our holiest
speech that it is as well not to cast any of our pearls before such swine; but
if the psalmist meant, “I was silent while I had the prosperity of the wicked
in my thoughts,” then we see the discontent and questioning of his mind. Yet,
if we blame we must also praise, for the highest wisdom suggests that when good
men are bewildered with skeptical thoughts, they should not hasten to repeat
them.
2. I was dumb with silence. Not a word escaped him. I held my peace, even from good.
It was an easy, safe, and effectual way of avoiding sin, if it did not involve
a neglect of the duty which he owed to God to speak well of his name. Our
divine Lord was silent before the wicked, but not altogether so, for before
Pontius Pilate he witnessed a good confession, and asserted his kingdom. And
my sorrow was stirred. Inward grief was made to work and ferment by want of
vent. Utterance is the natural outlet for the heart’s anguish, and silence is,
therefore, both an aggravation of the evil and a barrier against its cure.
Nature may do her best to silence the expression of discontent, but unless
grace comes to her rescue, she will be sure to succumb.
3. My heart was hot within me. The door of his heart was shut, and with the fire of sorrow
burning within, the chamber of his soul soon grew unbearable with heat. Silence
is an awful thing for a sufferer. Mourner, tell your sorrow; do it first and
most fully to God, but even to pour it out before some wise and godly friend is
far from being wasted breath. While I was musing the fire burned. As he
thought upon the ease of the wicked and his own daily affliction, he could not
unravel the mystery of providence. Then spake I with my tongue. The
original is grandly laconic. I spake. The muzzled tongue burst all its
bonds. You can silence praise, but anguish is clamorous.
4. Lord. If my swelling heart must speak, Lord, let it speak with
thee; even if there be too much of natural heat in what I say, thou wilt be
more patient with me than man, and upon thy purity it can cast no stain;
whereas if I speak to my fellows, they may harshly rebuke me or else learn evil
from my petulance. Make me to know my end. Did he mean the same as
Elijah in his agony, “Let me die; I am no better than my fathers”? Perhaps
so. At any rate, he rashly and petulantly desired to know the end of his
wretched life, that he might begin to reckon the days till death put an end to
his woe. Yet, there is a better meaning: the psalmist would know more of the
shortness of life, that he might better bear its transient ills, and herein we
may safely kneel with him, uttering the same petition. That there is no end to
its misery is the hell of hell; that there is an end to life’s sorrow is the
hope of all who have a hope beyond the grave. And the measure of my days.
David wants to be assured that his days will be soon over and his trials with
them; he wants to be taught anew that life is measured out to us by wisdom, and
is not a matter of chance. That I may know how frail I am, or when I
shall cease to be. Man quarrels with God at such a rate that he would sooner
cease to be than bear the Lord’s appointment. David’s case is not recorded for
our imitation, but for our learning.
5. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth. Upon consideration, the psalmist finds little room to
bewail the length of life, but rather to bemoan its shortness. A handbreadth is
one of the shortest natural measures; such is the brevity of life, by divine
appointment. The behold calls us to attention: how well should those
live who are to live so little! And mine age is as nothing before thee.
Think of eternity, and the world is as a fresh blown bubble, and man a nullity.
Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. This is the
surest truth, that nothing about man is either sure or true. Take man at his
best, he is but a mere breath. Man is settled, as the margin has it, and
by divine decree it is settled that he shall not be settled. His best, of which
he is vain, is but vain. This is sad news for those whose treasures are beneath
the moon; but those whose best estate is settled upon them in Christ Jesus may
rejoice that it is no vain thing in which they trust.
6. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew. Life is but a passing pageant. Worldly men walk like
travelers in a mirage, deluded, soon to be filled with disappointment and
despair. Surely they are disquieted in vain. Men fret, and fume, and
worry, and all for mere nothing. Read well this text, and then listen to the
clamor of the market, the hum of the exchange, the din of the city streets, and
remember that all this noise (for so the word means) is made about
unsubstantial, fleeting vanities. He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who
shall gather them. His wheat is sheaved, but an interloping robber bears it
away—as often happens with the poor Eastern husbandman; or, the wheat is
stored, but the invader feasts thereon. We know not our heirs, for our children
die, and strangers fill the old ancestral halls.
7. And now, Lord,
what wait I for? What is there in these phantoms to
enchant me? Why should I linger where the prospect is so uninviting, and the
present so trying? It is worse than vanity to linger in the abodes of sorrow to
fain a heritage of emptiness. The psalmist, therefore, turns to his God, in
disgust of all things else; he has cut all cords which bound him to earth. My
hope is in thee. The Lord is self-existent and true, and therefore worthy
of the confidence of men; he will live when all the creatures die, and his
fullness will abide when all second causes are exhausted; to him, therefore,
let us direct our expectation, and on him let us rest our confidence. David had
but one hope, and that hope entered within the veil.
8. Deliver me from all my transgressions. How fair a sign it is when the psalmist no longer harps on
his sorrows, but begs freedom from his sins! What is sorrow when compared with
sin! Let the poison of sin be gone from the cup, and we need not fear its gall,
for the bitter will act medicinally. None can deliver us from our
transgressions but Jesus, and when he works this great deliverance from the
cause, the consequences are sure to disappear too. The thorough cleansing
desired is well worthy of note: to be saved from some transgressions would be
of small benefit; total and perfect deliverance is needed. Make me not the
reproach of the foolish. The wicked are the foolish here meant; they are
always on the watch for the faults of the saints, and at once make them the
theme of ridicule. Alas, how many have exposed themselves to well-deserved reproach!
Sin and shame go together, and from both David wants to be preserved.
9. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst
it. This would have been far more
clearly rendered, “I am silenced, I will not open my mouth.” Here we have a
nobler silence, purged of all sullenness, and sweetened with submission.
Silence may be sinful in one case and saintly in another. What a reason for
hushing every murmuring thought is the reflection because thou didst it!
It is his right to do as he wills, and he always wills to do that which is
wisest and kindest; let him do what seems good to him.
10. Remove thy stroke away from me. Silence from all repining did not prevent the voice of
prayer, which must never cease. In all probability the Lord would grant the
psalmist’s petition, for he usually removes affliction when we are resigned to
it. It is quite consistent with resignation to pray for the removal of a trial.
I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. It is well to show our Father
the bruises which his scourge has made, for perhaps his fatherly pity will bind
his hands, and move him to comfort us. It is not to consume us, but to consume
our sins, that the Lord aims at in his chastisements.
11. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity. God does not trifle with his rod; he uses it because of
sin, and with a view to whip us from it; he means his strokes to be felt. Thou
makest his beauty to consume away like a moth. Beauty must be a poor thing
when a moth can consume it and a rebuke can mar it. All our desires and
delights are wretched moth-eaten things when the Lord visits us in his anger. Surely
every man is vanity. He is as unsubstantial as his own breath. Selah.
Well may this truth bring us to a pause.
12. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Thou hast heard the clamor of my sins, Lord; hear the
laments of my prayers. And give ear unto my cry. Here is an advance in
intensity: a cry is more vehement, pathetic, and impassioned than a prayer. Hold
not thy peace at my tears. This is a yet higher degree of importunate
pleading. Who can withstand tears, which are the irresistible weapons of
weakness? Mercy denies them nothing, if through them the weeper looks to richer
drops, even to the blood of Jesus. God may long be quiet, as though he regarded
not, but the hour of deliverance will come, and come like the morning when the
dewdrops are plentiful. For I am a stranger with thee. Not to thee,
but with thee. Like thee, my Lord, a stranger among the sons of men, an
alien from my mother’s children. God made the world, sustains it, and owns it,
and yet men treat him as though he were a foreign intruder; and as they treat
the Master, so do they deal with the servants. These words may also mean, “I
share the hospitality of God,” like a stranger entertained by a generous host.
Israel was bidden to deal tenderly with the stranger, and the God of Israel has
in much compassion treated us poor aliens with unbounded liberality. And a
sojourner, as all my fathers were. They used the world as travelers use an
inn, and so do I. David uses the fleeting nature of our life as an argument for
the Lord’s mercy. We show pity to poor pilgrims, and so will the Lord.
13. O spare me.
Turn away thy angry face. Give me breathing time. Do not kill me. That I may
recover my strength. Let me take repose and nourishment. He expects to die
soon, but begs a little respite from sorrow, so as to be able to rally and once
more enjoy life before its close. Before I go hence, and be no more. So
far as this world is concerned, death is a being no more; such a state awaits
us, we are hurrying onward towards it. May the short interval which divides us
from it be gilded with the sunlight of our Heavenly Father’s love.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
