1. I waited patiently for the Lord. Patient
waiting upon God was a special characteristic of our Lord Jesus. All through
his agony in the garden, his trial of cruel mockings before Herod and Pilate,
and his passion on the tree, he waited in omnipotence of patience. No glance of
wrath, no word of murmuring, no deed of vengeance came from God’s patient Lamb.
And shall we be petulant and rebellious? And he inclined unto me, and heard
my cry. Neither Jesus the Head, nor any one of the members of his body,
shall ever wait upon the Lord in vain. Note the figure of inclining, as though
the suppliant cried out of the lowest depression, and condescending love
stooped to hear his feeble moans. What a marvel it is that our Lord Jesus
should have to cry as we do, and wait as we do, and should receive the Father’s
help after the same process of faith and pleading as must be gone through by
ourselves! The Son of David was brought very low, but he rose to victory; and
here he teaches us how to conduct our conflicts so as to succeed after the same
glorious pattern of triumph. Let us arm ourselves with the same mind, and
maintain the Holy War.
2. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit. When our Lord bore in his own person the terrible curse
which was due to sin, he was so cast clown as to be like a prisoner in a
dungeon, immured amid horror, darkness, and desolation. Yet the Lord Jehovah
made him ascend from all his abasement; he retraced his steps from that deep
hell of anguish into which he had been cast as our substitute. He who thus
delivered our surety will not fail to liberate us from our far lighter griefs. Out
of the miry clay. The sufferer was as one who cannot find a foothold, but
slips and sinks. The figure indicates not only positive misery as in the former
figure, but the absence of solid comfort by which sorrow might have been
rendered supportable. With humble gratitude let us adore the Redeemer who, for
our sake, was deprived of all consolation while surrounded with every form of
misery; if you too have received divine help, be sure to join your Lord in this
song. And set my foot upon a rock, and established my goings. The
Redeemer’s work is done; he can never suffer again; forever does he reign in
glory. What a comfort to know that Jesus our Lord and Saviour stands on a sure
foundation in all that he is and does for us. If we are cast like our Lord into
the lowest pit of shame and sorrow, we shall by faith rise to stand on the same
elevated, sure, and everlasting rock of divine favor.
3. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto
our God. At the Passover, before his
passion, our Lord sang one of the grand old psalms of praise; but what is the
music of his heart now, in the midst of his redeemed! Sin o’erthrown and
righteousness resplendent—what a theme for a hymn when our Lord drinks the red
wine new with us all in our Father’s kingdom! Our God. How will we
praise him; Jesus will lead the solemn hallelujah which goes up from the host
redeemed by blood. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. A multitude that no man can
number will see the griefs and triumphs of Jesus, will tremble because of their
sinful rejection of him, and then through grace will receive faith and become
trusters in Jehovah. Here is our Lord’s reward. Here is the assurance which
makes preachers bold and workers persevering. Note the way of salvation, a
sight, a fear, a trust! Do you know what these mean by possessing and
practicing them in your own soul? Trusting in the Lord is the evidence, indeed
the essence of salvation. The true believer is evidently redeemed from the
dominion of sin and Satan.
4. Blessed.
This is an exclamation similar to that of the first psalm, “Oh, the
happinesses of the man.” God’s blessings are emphatic. Is that man that
maketh the Lord his trust.
Faith obtains promises. A simple single-eyed confidence in God is the sure mark
of blessedness. A man may be as poor as Lazarus, as hated as Mordecai, as sick
as Hezekiah, as lonely as Elijah, but while his hand of faith can keep its hold
on God, none of his outward afflictions can prevent his being numbered among
the blessed; but the wealthiest man who has no faith is accursed. And
respecteth not the proud. The proud expect everyone to bow down and do them
reverence, but believers are too noble to honor mere money-bags, or cringe
before bombastic dignity. The righteous pay their respect to humble goodness,
rather than to inflated self-consequence. Our Lord Jesus was in this our bright
example. Nor such as turn aside to lies. Heresies and idolatries are
lies, and so are avarice, worldliness, and pleasure-seeking. Woe to those who
follow such deceptions. Our Lord was ever both the truth and the lover of
truth, and the father of lies had no part in him. We must never pay deference
to apostates, time-servers, and false teachers; the more we purge ourselves of
them the better. Many apparently happy people must be the reverse of blessed,
for anything in the shape of a wealthy establishment commands their reverence,
whether the owner be a rake or a saint, an idiot or a philosopher. If the
arch-fiend of hell were to start a carriage and pair and live like a lord, he
would have thousands who would court his acquaintance.
5. Many, O Lord
my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done. Creation, providence, and redemption teem with wonders as
the sea teems with life. Our special attention is called by this passage to the
marvels which cluster around the cross and flash from it. Wonders of grace
beyond all enumeration take their rise from the cross; adoption, pardon,
justification, and a long chain of godlike miracles of love proceed from it.
Note that the Lord here speaks of the Lord as my God. The man Christ
Jesus claimed for himself and us a covenant relationship with Jehovah. And
thy thoughts which are to usward. All the divine thoughts are good and
gracious towards his elect. God’s thoughts of love are very many, very
wonderful, very practical! God’s thoughts of you are many; let not yours be few
in return. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee. Their sum is
so great as to forbid alike analysis and numeration. Human minds fail to
measure, or to arrange in order, the Lord’s ways and thoughts. How sweet to be
outdone, overcome and overwhelmed by the astonishing grace of the Lord our God!
If I would declare and speak of them, and surely this should be the
occupation of my tongue at all seasonable opportunities, they are more than
can be numbered. The list is too long for writing, and the value of the
mercies too great for estimation. Yet, if we cannot show forth all the works of
the Lord, let us not make this an excuse for silence; for our Lord, who is in
this our best example, often spoke of the tender thoughts of the great Father.
6. Here we
enter upon one of the most wonderful passages in the whole of the Old
Testament, a passage in which the incarnate Son of God is seen not through a
glass darkly, but as it were face to face. Sacrifice and offering thou didst
not desire. In themselves considered, and for their own sakes, the Lord saw
nothing satisfactory in the various offerings of the ceremonial law. When
Jesus, the Antitype, came into the world, they ceased to be of value. Mine
ears hast thou opened. Our Lord was quick to hear and perform his Father’s
will. The prompt obedience of our Lord is here the first idea. However, the
digging of the ear here intended may refer to the boring of the ear of the
servant, who refused out of love to his master to take his liberty at the year
of jubilee; his perforated ear, the token of perpetual service, is a true
picture of our blessed Lord’s fidelity to his Father’s business, and his love
to his Father’s children. Jesus irrevocably gave himself to being the servant
of servants for our sake and God’s glory. The Greek from which Paul quoted
translated this passage: “A body hast thou prepared me.” How this reading
arose it is not easy to imagine, but since apostolical authority has sanctioned
the variation, we accept it as no mistake, but as an instance of various
readings equally inspired. In any case, the passage represents the Only Begotten
as coming into the world equipped for service; and in a real and material body,
by actual life and death, putting aside all the shadows of the Mosaic law. Burnt
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Neither the general nor
the private offerings are any longer demanded. What need of mere emblems when
the substance itself is present? We learn from this verse that Jehovah values
far more the obedience of the heart than all the imposing ritualistic worship;
and that our expiation from sin comes not to us as the result of an elaborate
ceremonial, but as the effect of our great Substitute’s obedience to the will
of Jehovah.
7. Then said I.
That is to say, when it was clearly seen that man’s misery could not be
remedied by sacrifices and offerings. It being certain that the mere images of
atonement, and the bare symbols of propitiation were of no avail, the Lord
Jesus intervened in his own person. Lo, I come. The invisible God comes
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an infant the Infinite hangs at a
virgin’s breast! Immanuel did not send, but came in his own personality, in all
that constituted his essential self. In the volume of the book it is written
of me. In the eternal decree it is thus recorded. What a privilege to find
our names written in the book of life, and what an honor, since the name of
Jesus heads the page! Our Lord respected his ancient covenant engagements, and
in this he teaches us to be scrupulously just in keeping our word.
8. I delight to do thy will, O my God. Our blessed Lord alone could completely do the will of God.
The law is too broad for such poor creatures as we are to hope to fulfill it to
the uttermost; but Jesus not only did the Father’s will, but found a delight
therein. No outward, formal devotion was rendered by Christ; his heart was in
his work, holiness was his element, the Father’s will his meat and drink. We
must each of us be like our Lord in this, or we shall lack the evidence of
being his disciples. Where there is no heart work, no pleasure, no delight in
God’s law, there can be no acceptance.
9. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. The purest morality and the highest holiness were preached
by Jesus. Righteousness divine was his theme. Our Lord’s whole life was a
sermon, eloquent beyond compare, and it is heard each day by myriads. Moreover,
he never shunned in his ministry to declare the whole counsel of God; God’s
great plan of righteousness he plainly set forth. He taught openly in the
temple, and was not ashamed to be a faithful and a true witness. He was the
great evangelist; the master of itinerant preachers; the head of the clan of
open-air missionaries. Hide not your lights, but reveal to others what your God
has revealed to you, and especially by your lives testify for holiness, be
champions for the right, both in word and deed. Lo, I have not refrained my
lips, O Lord, thou knowest.
Never either from love of ease, or fear of men, did the Great Teacher’s lips
become closed. The poor listened to him, and princes heard his rebuke; to
publicans and Pharisees he proclaimed the truth from heaven. If we are not
ashamed to confess our God, he will never be ashamed to own us. Yet what a
wonder is here, that the Son of God should plead just as we plead, and urge
just arguments as would befit the mouths of his diligent ministers!
10. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart. God’s plan of making men righteous was well known to him,
and he plainly taught it. What was in our great Master’s heart he poured forth
in holy eloquence from his lips. The doctrine of righteousness by faith he
spoke with great simplicity of speech. Law and Gospel equally found in him a
clear expositor. I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation.
Jehovah’s fidelity to his promises and his grace in saving believers were
declared by the Lord Jesus on many occasions, and are blessedly blended in the
Gospel which he came to preach. God, faithful to his own character, law and
threatenings, and yet saving sinners, is a peculiar revelation of the Gospel.
God faithful to the saved ones evermore is the joy of the followers of Christ
Jesus. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great
congregation. The tender as well as the stem attributes of God, our Lord
Jesus fully unveiled. Hesitancy never weakened his language. He could be dumb
when so the prophecy demanded and patience suggested, but otherwise preaching
was his meat and his drink, and he kept back nothing which would be profitable
to his disciples. This in the day of his trials, according to this psalm, he
used as a plea for divine aid. He had been faithful to his God, and now begs
the Lord to be faithful to him. Let every believer tongue-tied by sinful shame
think how little he will be able to plead after this fashion in the day of his
distress.
11. Withhold not thy tender mercies from me, O Lord.
Alas, these were to be for a while withheld from our Lord while on the accursed
tree, but meanwhile in his great agony he seeks for gentle dealing; and the
coming of the angel to strengthen him was a clear answer to his prayer. He had
been blessed before in the desert, and now at the entrance of the valley of the
shadow of death, like a true, trustful, and experienced man, he utters a holy,
plaintive desire for the tenderness of heaven. He had not withheld his
testimony to God’s truth; now in return he begs his Father not to withhold his
compassion. This verse might more correctly be read as a declaration of his
confidence that help would not be refused; but whether we view this utterance
as the cry of prayer, or the avowal of faith, in either case it is instructive
to us who take our suffering Lord for an example, and it proves to us how
thoroughly he was made like his brethren. Let thy lovingkindness and thy
truth continually preserve me. He had preached both of these, and now he
asks for an experience of them, that he might be kept in the evil day and
rescued from his enemies and his afflictions. Nothing endears our Lord to us
more than to hear him thus pleading with strong crying and tears to him who was
able to save. O Lord Jesus, in our nights of wrestling we will remember thee.
12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about. On every side he was beset with evils; countless woes
environed the great Substitute for our sins. Our sins were innumerable, and so
were his griefs. There was no escape for us from our iniquities, and there was
no escape for him from the woes which we deserved. Mine iniquities have
taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up. He had no sin, but
sins were laid on him, and he took them as if they were his. “He was made sin
for us.” The transfer of sin to the Saviour was real, and produced in him as
man the horror which forbade him to look into the face of God, bowing him down
with crushing anguish and woe intolerable. O my soul, what would your sins have
done for you eternally if the Friend of sinners had not condescended to take
them all upon himself? “The Lord
hath made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all.” They are more than the
hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me. The pains of the divine
penalty were beyond computing. His strength was gone, his spirits sank, he was
in an agony.
13. Be pleased, O Lord,
to deliver me: O Lord, make haste
to help me. How touching! How humble! How
plaintive! His petition is not so much that the cup should pass away untrained,
but that he should be sustained while drinking it, and set free from its power
at the first fitting moment. He seeks deliverance and help, and he entreats
that the help may not be slow in coming. Our Lord was heard in that he feared,
for there was after Gethsemane a calm endurance which made the fight as
glorious as the victory.
14. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek
after my soul to destroy it.
Whether we read this as a prayer or a prophecy it matters not, for the powers
of sin, and death, and hell, may well be ashamed as they see the result of
their malice forever turned against themselves. It is to the infinite confusion
of Satan that his attempt to destroy the Saviour destroyed himself; the Lord
Jesus has turned the diabolical wisdom into foolishness. Let them be driven
backward and put to shame that wish me evil. The hosts of darkness are
utterly put to the rout, and made a theme for holy derision forever. The
Crucified has conquered; the Son of Man has become hell’s destruction.
15. Let them be desolate,
or amazed. As Jesus was desolate in his agony, let his enemies be in their
despair when he defeats them. The desolation caused in the hearts of evil
spirits and evil men by envy, malice, chagrin, disappointment and despair will
be a fit recompense for their cruelty to the Lord when he was in their hands. For
a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha. Did the foul fiend
insult our Lord? Shame is now his reward. Do the wicked today pour shame on the
name of the Redeemer? Their desolation will avenge him of his adversaries.
Jesus is the gentle Lamb to all who seek mercy through his blood; but let
despisers beware. The Jewish rulers scornfully said, “Aha, aha,” but the
blood of the last of the prophets came upon themselves and upon their children.
Beware of persecuting Christ and his people, for God will surely avenge his own
elect.
16. Let all those that seek thee, rejoice and be glad in
thee. Here our Lord pronounces
benedictions on his people. Note who the blessed objects of his petitions are:
not all men, but some men: “I pray for them, I pray not for the world.” He
pleads for seekers: the lowest in the kingdom, the babes of the family; those
who have true desires, longing prayers, and consistent endeavors after God.
What riches of grace, that in his bitterest hour Jesus should remember the
lambs of the flock! He entreats that they may be doubly glad, intensely happy,
emphatically joyful, for such the repetition of the terms implies. Jesus would
have all seekers win peace through his grief. He groaned that we might sing,
and was covered with a bloody sweat that we might be anointed with the oil of
gladness. Let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified. We love with all
our hearts his great salvation; let us then proclaim the glory of God which is
resplendent therein. Never let his praises cease. If we cannot do what we would
like for the spread of the kingdom, at least let us desire and pray for it. Be
it ours to make God’s glory the chief end of every breath and pulse. The
suffering Redeemer regarded the consecration of his people to the service of
heaven as a grand result of his atoning death; it is the joy which was set
before him; that God is glorified is the reward of the Saviour’s labor.
17. But I am poor and needy. The man of sorrows closes with another appeal based upon
his affliction and poverty. Ye the Lord
thinketh upon me. Sweet was this solace to the holy heart of the great
sufferer. The Lord’s thoughts of us are a cheering subject of meditation, for
they are ever kind and never cease. His disciples forsook him, and his friends
forgot him, but Jesus knew that Jehovah never turned away his heart from him,
and this upheld him in the hour of need. Thou art my help and my deliverer.
His unmoved confidence stayed itself alone on God. Oh that all believers would
imitate more fully their great Apostle and High Priest in his firm reliance
upon God, even when afflictions abounded and the light was veiled. Make no
tarrying, O my God. The need was urgent; the angel came to strengthen, and
the brave heart of Jesus rose up to meet the foe.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
