1. Blessed is he that considereth the poor. This is the third psalm opening with a benediction, and
there is a growth in it beyond the first two. To search the Word of God comes
first, pardoned sin is second, and now the forgiven sinner brings forth fruit
unto God available for the good of others. The word used is as emphatic as in
the former cases, and so is the blessing which follows it. The poor intended
are such as are poor in substance, weak in bodily strength, despised in repute,
and desponding in spirit. These are mostly avoided and frequently scorned. The
sick and the sorry are poor company, and the world deserts them. Such as have
been made partakers of divine grace receive a tenderer nature, and are not
hardened against their own flesh and blood; they undertake the cause of the
downtrodden, and turn their minds seriously to the promotion of their welfare.
They do not toss them a penny and go on their way, but inquire into their
sorrows, sift out their cause, study the best ways for their relief, and
practically come to their rescue; such as these have the mark of the divine
favor upon them, and are as surely the sheep of the Lord’s pasture as if they
wore a brand upon their foreheads. They are not said to have considered the
poor years ago, but they still do so. Stale benevolence, when boasted of,
argues present churlishness. First and foremost, indeed far above all others
put together in tender compassion for the needy is our Lord Jesus, who so
remembered our low estate that, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor.
All his attributes were charged with the task of our uplifting. He weighed our
case and came in the fullness of wisdom to execute the wonderful work of mercy
by which we are redeemed from our destructions. His mercy is always in the
present tense, and so let our praises be. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The
compassionate lover of the poor thought of others, and therefore God will think
of him. Days of trouble come even to the most generous, and they have made the
wisest provision for rainy days who have lent shelter to others when times were
better with them. The promise is not that generous saints will have no trouble,
but that they will be preserved in it, and in due time brought out of it. How
true was this of our Lord! The joy of doing good, the sweet reaction of
another’s happiness, the approving smile of heaven upon the heart if not upon
the estate, all these the niggardly soul knows nothing of. Selfishness bears in
itself a curse; it is a cancer in the heart. In dark days we cannot rest on the
supposed merit of almsgiving, but still the music of memory brings with it no
mean solace when it tells of widows and orphans whom we have succored, and
prisoners and sick folk to whom we have ministered.
2. The Lord
will preserve him, and keep him alive.
His noblest life will be immortal, and even his mortal life will be sacredly
guarded by the power of Jehovah. Jesus lived on till his hour came, and even
then he laid it down of himself, to take it again. All those who are made like
our Lord bless and will be blessed; they preserve and will be preserved; they
watch over the lives of others and they themselves will be precious in the
sight of the Lord. The miser, like the hog, is of no use till he is dead—then
let him die; the righteous like the ox is of service during life—then let him
live. And he shall be blessed upon the earth. His cruse of oil will not
be dried up because he fed the poor prophet. If temporal gains are not given
him, spiritual ones will be doubled to him. Our Lord’s real blessedness of
heart in the joy that was set before him is a subject worthy of earnest
thought, especially as it is the picture of the blessing which all liberal
saints may look for. And thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his
enemies. He helped the distressed, and now he will find a champion in his
God. It would not be easy to see how this could be true of our Lord Jesus, if
we did not know that although he was made a curse for us, yet even he was not
altogether nor forever left by God, but in due time was exalted above all his
enemies.
3. The Lord
will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing. How tender and sympathizing is this image; how near it
brings our God to our infirmities and sicknesses! It is blessed fainting when
one falls upon the Lord’s own bosom, and is upborne thereby! Grace is the best
of restoratives; divine love makes the soul strong as a giant, even when the
aching bones are breaking through the skin. Thou wilt make all his bed in
his sickness. Does the Lord turn bedmaker to his sick children? Here is
love indeed. A bed soon grows hard when the body is weary with tossing to and
fro, but grace gives patience, and God’s smile gives peace, and the bed is made
soft because the heart is content. Note that the Lord will make all his
bed, from head to foot. Our Lord Jesus, though in all respects an inheritor of
this promise, for our sakes condescended to forego the blessing, and died upon
a cross and not on a bed; yet even there, he was after a while upheld and
cheered by the Lord his God, so that he died in triumph.
We must not imagine that the benediction pronounced in
verses 2–4 belongs to all who casually give money to the poor, or leave it in
their wills, or contribute to societies. The blessing is for those whose habit
is to love their neighbor as themselves, and who for Christ’s sake feed the
hungry and clothe the naked. To imagine a man to be a saint who does not
consider the poor as he has ability is to conceive the fruitless fig to be
acceptable; there will be sharp dealing with many on this point in the day when
the King comes in his glory.
4–9. Here we
have a controversy between the pleader and his God. He had been a tender friend
to the poor, and yet in his need the promised assistance was not forthcoming.
In our Lord’s case there was a dark and dreary night in which such arguments
were well befitting himself and his condition.
4. I said—said
it in earnest prayer—Lord, be
merciful unto me. Prove now thy gracious dealings with my soul in
adversity, since thou didst give me grace to act liberally in my prosperity. No
appeal is made to justice; the petitioner just hints at the promised reward,
but goes straightforward to lay his plea at the feet of mercy. How low was our
Redeemer brought when such petitions could come from his reverend mouth, when
his lips dropped such sweet smelling but bitter myrrh! Heal my soul. My
time of languishing is come, now do as thou hast said, and strengthen me,
especially in my soul. We ought to be far more earnest for the soul’s healing
than for the body’s ease. For I have sinned against thee. Here was the
root of sorrow. Sin and suffering are inevitable. Observe that by the psalmist
sin was felt to be mainly evil because directed against God. This is of the
essence of true repentance. The immaculate Saviour could never have used such
language as this unless there is here a reference to the sin which he took upon
himself by imputation; and for our part we tremble to apply words so manifestly
indicating personal rather than imputed sin. Applying the petition to David and
other sinful believers, how evangelical is the argument: heal me, not for I am
innocent, but I have sinned. How contrary is this to all self-righteous
pleading! How inconsistent with merit! Even the fact that the confessing
penitent had remembered the poor is but obliquely urged, but a direct appeal is
made to mercy on the ground of great sin.
5. Mine enemies speak evil of me. It was their nature to do and speak evil; it was not
possible that the child of God could escape them. Jesus was traduced to the
utmost, although no offense was in him. When shall he die, and his name
perish? The world is not wide enough for evil people to live in while the
righteous remain. The lights of the world are not the delights of the world;
but the Lord lives, and preserves both the saints and their names.
6. And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity. His visits of sympathy are visitations of mockery. It is
wretched to have spies haunting one’s bedroom, calling in pretense of kindness,
but with malice in their hearts. Hypocritical talk is always fulsome and
sickening to honest people, but especially to suffering saints. Our divine Lord
had much of this from the false hearts that watched his words. His heart
gathereth iniquity to itself. From the purest words and deeds malice can
gather groundwork for calumnious report. It is perfectly marvelous how spite
spins webs out of no materials whatever. It is no small trial to have base
people around you lying in wait for every word which they may pervert to evil.
The Master whom we serve was constantly subject to this affliction. When he
goeth abroad, he telleth it. He is no sooner out of the house than he outs
with his lie, and this against a sick man whom he called to see as a friend.
How far abroad people will go to publish their slanders! A little fault is made
much of; a slip of the tongue is a libel, a mistake a crime, and if a word can
bear two meanings the worse is always fathered upon it. It is base to strike a
man when he is down, yet such is the meanness of mankind towards a Christian
hero should he for a while chance to be under a cloud.
7. All that hate me whisper together against me. The spy meets his comrades in conclave and sets them all
a-whispering. Were their designs so treacherous that they must be hatched in
secrecy? Mark the unanimity of the wicked—all. Would God we were half as
united in holy labor as persecutors in their malicious projects, and were half
as wise as they are crafty. Against me do they devise my hurt. Evil
people are good at devising; they are given to meditation, they are deep
thinkers, but the mark they aim at is evermore the hurt of the faithful. Snakes
in the grass are never there for a good end.
8. An evil disease, they say, deaveth fast unto him. They whisper that some curse has fallen upon him. They
insinuate that a foul secret stains his character. Our Lord’s enemies conceived
that God had forsaken him, and delivered him forever into their hands. And
now that he lieth he shall rise up no more. His sickness they hoped was
mortal, and this was fine news for them. No more would the good man’s holiness
chide their sin. Their prophesyings were more jubilant than accurate, but they
were a sore scourge to the sick man. When the Lord smites his people for a
moment, their enemies expect to see them capitally executed, and prepare to
celebrate their funerals, but they are in too great a hurry. Our Redeemer,
rising out of his grave, pours confusion on his enemies.
9. Yea. Here is
the climax of the sufferer’s woe, and he places before it the emphatic
affirmation, as if he thought that such villainy would scarcely be believed. Mine
own familiar friend. “The man of my peace,” so runs the original, with
whom I had no differences, with whom I was in league, who had before ministered
to my peace and comfort. This was Iscariot with our Lord: an apostle, admitted
to the privacy of the great Teacher. The kiss of the traitor wounded our Lord’s
heart as much as the nail wounded his hand. In whom I trusted. Judas was
the treasurer. Where we place great confidence an unkind act is the more
severely felt. Which did eat of my bread. Not only as a guest but as a
dependent. Hath lifted up his heel against me. Not merely turned his
back on me, but left me with a heavy kick such as a vicious horse might give.
The Redeemer applied only the last words of this verse to Judas, perhaps
because, knowing his duplicity, he had never made a familiar friend of him in
the fullest sense, and had not placed implicit trust in him. We are indeed
wretched when all the rites of hospitality are perverted, and ingratitude is
the only return for kindness; yet we may cast ourselves on the faithfulness of
God who, having delivered our Covenant Head, is engaged to be the very present
help of all for whom that covenant was made.
10. But thou, O Lord,
be merciful unto me. How the hunted and affrighted soul
turns to her God! How she clings to the hope of mercy from God when every
chance of pity from man is gone! And raise me up. Recover me from
sickness. Jesus was raised up from the grave. That I may requite them.
This is a truly Old Testament sentence, and quite aside from the spirit of
Christianity; yet we must remember that David was a person in magisterial
office, and might without any personal revenge desire to punish those who had
insulted his authority and libeled his public character. Our great High Priest
had no personal animosities, but even he by his resurrection has requited the
powers of evil, and avenged on death and hell all their base attacks upon his
cause and person. Still the strained application of every sentence of this
psalm to Christ is not to our liking, and we prefer to call attention to the
better spirit of the Gospel beyond that of the old dispensation.
11. We all
are cheered by tokens for good, and the psalmist felt it to be an auspicious
omen that after all his deep depression he was not utterly given over to his
foe. By this I know that thou favorest me. Thou hast a special regard to
me, I have the secret assurance of this in my heart, and, therefore, thine
outward dealings do not dismay me, for I know that thou lovest me in them all. Because
mine enemy doth not triumph over me. What if the believer has no triumph
over his foes, he must be glad that they do not triumph over him. If we have
not all we want, we should praise God for all we have. Much there is in us over
which the ungodly might exult, and if God’s mercy keeps the dogs’ mouths closed
when they might be opened, we must give him our heartiest gratitude. What a
wonder it is that when the devil enters the lists with a poor, erring,
bedridden, deserted, slandered saint, and has a thousand evil tongues to aid
him, yet he cannot win the day.
12. But as for me,
despite them all and in the sight of them all, thou upholdest me in mine
integrity; thy power enables me to rise above the reach of slander by
living in purity and righteousness. Our innocence and consistency are the
result of the divine upholding. We are like those glassed vessels without feet,
which can only be upright while they are held in the hand; we fall, and spill,
and spoil all, if left to ourselves. The Lord should be praised every day if we
are preserved from gross sin. When others sin they show us what we would do but
for grace. We must be humbled while we are grateful. If we are clear of the
faults alleged against us by our calumniators, we have nevertheless quite
enough of actual blameworthiness to render it shameful for us to boast. And
settest me before thy face forever. He rejoiced that he was tended, cared
for, and smiled upon by his Lord; and that it would be so world without end.
13. Blessed be the Lord. We cannot add to the Lord’s blessedness, but we can pour
out our grateful wishes, and these he accepts, as we receive little presents of
flowers from children who love us. Jehovah is the personal name of our God. God
of Israel is his covenant title, and shows his special relation to his
elect people. From everlasting and to everlasting. The strongest way of
expressing endless duration. We die, but the glory of God goes on and on
without pause. Amen and amen. So let it surely, firmly, and eternally
be. Thus the people joined in the psalm by a double shout of holy affirmation;
let us unite in it with all our hearts. This last verse may serve for the
prayer of the universal church in all ages, but none can sing it so sweetly as
those who have experienced as David did the faithfulness of God in times of
extremity.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
