1. In thee, O Lord,
do I put my trust. Jehovah deserves our confidence;
let him have it all. Every day must we guard against every form of reliance
upon an arm of flesh, and hourly hand our faith upon the ever faithful God. Not
only on God must we rest, as a person stands on a rock, but in
him, as a person hides in a cave. God knows our faith, and yet he loves to hear
us avow it. Let me never be put to confusion. So long as the world
stands, stand thou by me. If thou forsake me, people will ridicule my religion,
and how shall I be able to answer them? Confusion will silence me, and thy
cause will be put to shame. This verse is a good beginning for prayer; those
who commence with trust will conclude with joy.
2. Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape. I have trusted thee, and thou wilt not be unrighteous to
forget my faith. I am taken as in a net, but do thou liberate me. Incline
thine ear unto me, and save me. Stoop to my feebleness, and hear my faint
whispers. I ask salvation. I need thee to bend over me and bind up my wounds. These
mercies are asked on the plea of faith, and they cannot, therefore, be denied.
3. Be thou my strong habitation. Permit me to enter into thee, and remain in thee as my
settled abode. I need your dwelling to be as a fortress to me. Here we see a
weak man, but he is in a strong habitation; his security rests upon the tower
in which he hides, and is not placed in jeopardy through his personal
feebleness. Whereunto I may continually resort. Fast shut is this castle
against all adversaries; the drawbridge is up, the portcullis is down; but
there is a secret door by which friends of the great Lord can enter at all
hours of the day or night, as often as ever they please. There is never an hour
when it is unlawful to pray. Mercy’s gates stand wide open. Thou hast given
commandment to save me. Nature is charged to be tender with God’s servants;
Providence is ordered to work their good, and the forces of the invisible world
are ordained as their guardians. God’s commandment compels obedience, and
secures its end. Destruction cannot destroy us, famine cannot starve us; but we
laugh at both, while God’s mandate shields us. For thou art my rock and my
fortress. God is the complete preserver of his people. Immutability may be
set forth by the rock, and omnipotence by the fortress. Happy is
the person who can use the pronoun my. All mine will be his, all his
will be mine. This was the reason why the psalmist was persuaded that God had
commanded his salvation, namely, because he had enabled him to exercise a calm
and appropriating faith.
4. Deliver me, O God, out of the hand of the wicked. God is on the same side with us, and those who are our
enemies are also his, for they are wicked; therefore will the Lord surely
rescue his own confederates, and he will not suffer the evil one to triumph
over the just. Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. Being
wicked to God, they become unrighteous towards men, and cruel in their
persecutions of the godly. Two hands are here mentioned: they grasp and they
crush; they strike and they would slay if God did not prevent.
5. For thou art my hope, O Lord
God. God who gives us grace to hope in
him, will assuredly fulfill our hope, and therefore we may plead it in prayer.
His name is “Jehovah, the hope of Israel” (Jeremiah 17:13), and as he cannot
be a false or failing hope we may expect to see our confidence justified. Thou
art my trust from my youth. David had proved his faith by notable exploits
when he was a youth; he felt persuaded that the God of his youth would not
forsake him in his age.
6. By thee I have been holden up from the womb. Before he was able to understand the power which preserved
him, he was sustained by it. We do well to reflect upon divine goodness to us
in childhood, for it is full of food for gratitude. Thou art he that took me
out of my mother’s bowels. Birth is a mystery of mercy, and God is both
with mother and babe. She whose life is preserved should render thanks, and so
should he whose life is given. My praise shall be continually of thee.
Where goodness has been unceasingly received, praise should unceasingly be
offered.
7. I am as a wonder unto many. Often the saints’ dark side is gloomy while their bright
side is glorious. The believer is a riddle, puzzling the unspiritual; he is a
monster warring with those delights of the flesh which are the all in all of
other people; he is unaccountable to the judgments of ungodly people, a wonder
contemptuously derided. But thou art my strong refuge. Here is the
answer to our riddle. If we are safe, our refuge shelters us; if we are calm,
our soul has found her stay in God. When faith is understood, and the grounds
of her confidence are seen, the believer is no longer a wonder; but the marvel
is that so much unbelief remains.
8. God’s
bread is always in our mouths; so should his praise be. This would leave no
room for grumbling or backbiting; therefore may we well join with holy David in
this sacred wish.
9. Cast me not off in the time of old age. David was not tired of his Master, and his only fear was
lest his Master should be tired of him. Old age robs us of personal beauty, and
deprives us of strength for active service; but it does not lower us in the
love and favor of God. Forsake me not when my strength faileth. Bear
with me, and endure my infirmities. To be forsaken of God is the worst of all
conceivable ills, and if the believer can be but clear of that grievous fear he
is happy.
10. For mine enemies speak against me. Dogs howl over a dying lion. When David’s arm was able to
chastise his foes, they were yet impudent enough to slander him, and he fears
that now they will take fresh license in the hour of his weakness. The text
most properly means that his enemies had said that God would forsake him; and
therefore he is the more earnest that the Lord’s faithful dealings may give
them the lie. And they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together.
The psalmist had enemies, and these were most malicious; seeking his utter
destruction, they were very persevering; to this they added cunning, for they
lay in ambush to surprise him; and all this they did with the utmost unanimity
and deliberation. The Lord our God is our only and all-sufficient resort from
every form of persecution.
11. Saying, God hath forsaken him. O bitter taunt! There is no worse. Our Lord felt this, and
it is no wonder if his disciples feel the same. Were this exclamation the truth,
it were indeed an ill day for us; but, glory be to God, it is a barefaced lie. Persecute
and take him. Let loose the dogs of persecution upon him, seize him, worry
him, for there is none to deliver him. Down with him, for he has no
friends. It is safe to insult him, for none will come to his rescue. O cowardly
boasts of a braggart foe, how you wound the soul of the believer. Only when his
faith cries to his Lord is he able to endure.
12. O God, be not far from me. Nearness to God is our conscious security. A child in the
dark is comforted by grasping its father’s hand. O my God, make haste for my
help. To call God ours, as having entered into covenant with us, is a
mighty plea in prayer, and a great stay to our faith. The cry of make haste
has occurred many times in this portion of the Psalms, and it was evoked by the
sore pressure of affliction.
13. Let them be confounded and consumed that are
adversaries to my soul. It will
be all this to them to see thy servant preserved; their envy and malice, when
disappointed, will fill them with life-consuming bitterness. The defeat of
their plans will nonplus them, they will be confounded as they inquire the
reason for their overthrow; the men they seek to destroy seem so weak, and
their cause so contemptible, that they will be filled with amazement as they
see me not only survive all opposition but even surmount it. Let them be
covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my heart. He would have their
shame made visible to all eyes. They would have made a laughing-stock of the
believer if his God had forsaken him; therefore, let unbelief and atheism be
made a public scoffing in their persons.
14–16. The faith
of the persecuted saint comes to the front in these verses.
14. But I will hope continually. When I cannot rejoice in what I have, I will look forward
to what will be mine, and will still rejoice. No date and no place are
unsuitable for hope. Hell alone excepted, hope is a dweller in all regions. We
may always hope, for we always have grounds for it. And will yet praise thee
more and more. When good things are both continual and progressive with us,
we are on the right tack. In doing good, our motto should be “more and more.”
We cannot settle down to resting in our thankfulness.
15. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy
salvation all the day. We are to
bear testimony as experience enables us, and not withhold from others the
faithfulness of God in saving us, in delivering us out of the hand of our
enemies, and in fulfilling his promises. Mouths are never so usefully employed
as in recounting the righteousness of God revealed in the salvation of
believers in Jesus. The preacher confined to this one theme would never need to
seek another. He does not well who keeps such glad tidings to himself. For I
know not the numbers thereof. He knew the sweetness of it, the sureness,
the glory, and the truth of it; but he felt he could not reach to the height.
Lord, where I cannot count I will believe, and when a truth surpasses
numeration I will take to admiration. When David spoke of his enemies, he said
they were more in number than the hairs of his head; he had, therefore, some
idea of their number, and found a figure suitable to set it out; but, in the
case of the Lord’s covenant mercies, he declares, “I know not the number,”
and does not venture upon any sort of comparison. To creatures belong number
and limit; to God and his grace there is neither. We may therefore continue to
tell out his great salvation all day long, for the theme is utterly inexhaustible.
16. I will go in the strength of the Lord God.
Our translators give us a good sense, but not the sense in this place, which
is: “I will come with the mighty deeds of the Lord Jehovah.” He would enter
into those deeds by admiring study, and then, wherever he went, he would
continue to rehearse them. He would ever be a welcome guest who can tell us of
the mighty acts of the Lord, and help us to put our trust in him. The
Authorized Version may be used by us as a resolve in all our exertions and
endeavors. In our own strength we must fail; but when we hear the voice which
says, “Go in this thy might,” we may advance without fear. Though hell itself
were in the way, the believer would pursue the path of duty. I will make
mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. Human righteousness is
not fit to be mentioned—filthy rags are best hidden; neither is there any
righteousness under heaven, or in heaven, comparable to the divine. As God
himself fills all space, and is therefore the only God, leaving room for no
other, so God’s righteousness, in Christ Jesus, fills the believer’s soul, and
he counts all other things but dross and dung (Philippians 3:8–9). What would
be the use of speaking upon any other righteousness to someone dying? And all
are dying. People may cry up natural human innocence, the dignity of the race,
the purity of philosophers, the loveliness of untutored savages, the power of
sacraments, and the infallibility of pontiffs; this is the true believer’s
immovable resolve: “I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine
only.”
17. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth. None are too young to be caught of God, and they make the
most proficient scholars who begin early. And hitherto have I declared thy
wondrous works. He had learned to tell what he knew; he was a pupil
teacher; he continued still learning and declaring, and did not renounce his
first master; this, also, was his comfort, but it is one which those who have
been seduced from the school of the Gospel into the various colleges of
philosophy and skepticism will not be able to enjoy. We mean both to learn and
to teach the wonders of redeeming love, till we can discover something nobler
or more soul-satisfying.
18. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me
not. The venerable servant is beloved by
his master. When our infirmities multiply, we may with confidence expect
enlarged privileges in the world of grace to make up for our narrowing range in
the field of nature. Nothing will make God forsake those who have not forsaken
him. Our fear is lest he should do so; but his promise kisses that fear into
silence. Until I have showed thy strength unto this generation. He
desired to continue his testimony and complete it; he had respect to the young
men and little children about him, and knowing the vast importance of training
them in the fear of God, he longed to make them all acquainted with the power
of God to support his people, that they also might be led to walk by faith. He
had leaned on the almighty arm, and could speak from experience of its
all-sufficiency, and longed to do so ere life came to a close. And thy power
to every one that is to come. He would leave a record for unborn ages to
read. For this cause believers live, and they should take care to labor
zealously for this. Blessed are they who begin in youth to proclaim the name of
the Lord, and cease not until their last hour brings their last word for their
divine Master.
19. Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high. Very sublime, unsearchable, exalted, and glorious is the
holy character of God, and his way of making people righteous. His plan of
righteousness uplifts people from the gates of hell to the mansions of heaven. Who
hast done great things. The exploits of others are mere child’s play compared
with thine, and are not worthy to be mentioned on the same page. Creation,
providence, redemption, are all unique, and nothing can compare with them. O
God, who is like unto thee! Adoration is a fit frame of mind for the
believer. When he draws near to God, he enters into a region where everything
is surpassingly sublime; miracles of love abound on every hand, and marvels of
mingled justice and grace.
20. Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles,
shalt quicken me again. Here is
faith’s inference from the infinite greatness of the Lord. He has been strong
to smite; he will be also strong to save. He has shown me many heavy and severe
trials, and he will also show me many and precious mercies. Though I have been
almost dead and buried, he will give me a resurrection, and bring me up
again from the depths of the earth. However low the Lord may permit us to
sink, he will fix a limit to the descent, and in due time will bring us up
again. Even when we are laid low in the tomb, the mercy is that we can go no
lower, but will retrace our steps and mount to better lands; and all this
because the Lord is ever mighty to save.
21–22. Here is
the final vow of praise.
22. I will also praise thee with the psaltery. Love so amazing calls for sweetest praise. David would give
his best music, both vocal and instrumental, to the best of masters. His harp
would not be silent, nor his voice. Even thy truth, O my God. On this we
rest, and from it we draw streams of richest consolation. His promises are
sure, his love unalterable, his veracity indisputable. Unto thee will I sing
with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. Here is a new name and, as it
were, a new song. The Holy One of Israel is at once a lofty and an endearing
name, full of teaching.
23. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee. It will be no weariness to me to praise thee. The essence
of song lies in the holy joy of the singer. And my soul, which thou hast
redeemed. Soul-singing is the soul of singing. Till men are redeemed, they
are like instruments out of tune; but when once the precious blood has set them
at liberty, they are fitted to magnify the Lord who bought them. Our being
bought with a price is a more than sufficient reason for our dedicating
ourselves to the earnest worship of God our Saviour.
24. My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the
day long. My theme will be thy way of
justifying sinners, the glorious display of thy righteousness and grace in thy
dear Son. Others talk of their beloveds, and they will be made to hear of mine.
For they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt.
As in many other psalms, the concluding stanzas speak of that as an
accomplished fact which was only requested in former verses. Faith believes
that she has her request, and she has it. She is the substance of things hoped
for—a substance so real and tangible that it sets the glad soul singing.
Already sin, Satan, and the world are vanquished, and the victory is ours.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
