1. Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks. We were helpless, but Elohim heard our cry, and replied to
the taunt of our foes. Never let us neglect thanksgiving, or we may fear that
another time our prayers will remain unanswered. Gratitude should spring up in
our hearts after the smiles of God’s providence. Unto thee do we give
thanks. We should praise God again and again. Stinted gratitude is
ingratitude. For infinite goodness there should be measureless thanks. Faith
promises redoubled praise for greatly needed and signal deliverances. For
that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare. God is at hand to answer
and do wonders; ever in our darkest days he is most near; his perpetual deeds
of grace and majesty are the sure tokens of his being with us always, even unto
the end of the world.
2. When I shall receive the congregation I will judge
uprightly. This is generally believed to be
the voice of God, who will, when he accepts his people, mount his judgment-seat
and avenge their cause in righteousness. It is rendered by some, “I will take
a set time,” and by others, “I will seize the moment.” When the time
arrives, swift are his blows and sure his deliverances.
3. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved. When anarchy is abroad, and tyrants are in power,
everything is unloosed, dissolution threatens all things, the solid mountains
of government melt as wax; but the Lord upholds and sustains the right. I
bear up the pillars of it. Hence, there is no real cause for fear. While
the pillars stand, and stand they must, for God upholds them, the house will
brave out the storm. In the day of the Lord’s appearing a general melting will
take place, but in that day our covenant God will be the sure support of our
confidence. Selah. Here may the music pause while the sublime vision
passes before our view: a world dissolved and an immutable God uplifting all
his people above the terrible commotion.
4. I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly. The Lord bids the boasters boast not, and commands the mad
oppressors to stay their folly. How calm is he, how quiet are his words, yet
how divine the rebuke. If the wicked were not insane, they would even now hear
in the consciences the still small voice bidding them cease from evil, and
forbear their pride. And to the wicked, Lift not up the horn. He bids
the ungodly stay their haughtiness. The horn was the emblem of boastful power;
only the foolish, like wild beasts, will lift it high; but they assail heaven
with it as if they would gore the Almighty himself. In dignified majesty he
rebukes the inane glories of the wicked, who beyond measure exalt themselves in
the day of their fancied power.
5. Lift not up your horn on high. For their abounding pride there is a double rebuke. A word
from God soon abases the lofty. Would to God that all proud men would obey the
word here given them; for, if they do not, he will take effectual means to
secure obedience, and then woe will come upon them, such as shall break their
horns and roll their glory in the mire forever. Speak not with a stiff neck.
Impudence before God is madness. The outstretched neck of insolent pride is
sure to provoke his axe. Those who carry their heads high shall find that they
will be lifted yet higher, as Haman was upon the gallows which he had prepared
for the righteous man.
6. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the
west, nor from the south. Things
happen not by chance. Though deliverance be hopeless from all points of the
compass, yet God can work it for his people; and though judgment come neither
from the rising or the setting of the sun, nor from the wilderness of
mountains, yet come it will, for the Lord reigns. People forget that all things
are ordained in heaven; they see only the human force, but the unseen Lord is
near even now.
7. But God is the judge.
Even now he is actually judging. He putteth down one, and setteth up
another. Empires rise and fall at his bidding. God only is; all power
belongs to him; all else is shadow, coming and going, unsubstantial, misty,
dream-like.
8. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup. The punishment of the wicked is prepared, God himself holds
it in readiness; he has collected and concocted woes most dread, and in the
chalice of his wrath he holds it. They scoffed his feast of love; they will be
dragged to his table of justice and made to drink their due deserts. And the
wine is red. The retribution is terrible; it is blood for blood. It is
full of mixture. Spices of anger, justice, and incensed mercy are there.
Their misdeeds, their blasphemies, their persecutions have strengthened the
liquor as with potent drugs. And he poureth out of the same. The full
cup must be drunk; the wicked cannot refuse the terrible draught, for God
himself pours it out for them and into them. They could once defy him, but that
hour is over, and the time to requite them is fully come. But the dregs
thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.
They must drink even the dregs of deep damnation. Happy they who drink the cup
of godly sorrow, and the cup of salvation; these, though now despised, will
then be envied by the very people who trod them underfoot.
9. But I will declare forever. Thus will the saints occupy themselves with rehearsing
Jehovah’s praises, while their foes are drunk with the wrath-wine. They will
chant while the others roar in anguish, and justly so, for the former psalm
informed us that such had been the case on earth—“thine enemies roar in the
sanctuary”—the place where the chosen praised the Lord. I will sing praises
to the God of Jacob. The covenant God, who delivered Jacob from a thousand
afflictions, our soul will magnify. He has kept his covenant which he made with
the patriarch, and has redeemed his seed; therefore will we spread abroad his
fame world without end.
10. All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off. Power and liberty being restored to Israel, she begins
again to execute justice, by abasing the godless who had gloried in the reign
of oppression. Men wore horns in those days as part of their state, and these,
both literally and figuratively, were to be lopped off; for since God abhors
the proud, his church will not tolerate them any longer. But the horns of
the righteous shall be exalted. In a tightly ordered society, good men are
counted great men, virtue confers true rank, and grace is more esteemed than
gold. Being saved from unrighteous domination, the chief among the chosen
people here promises to rectify the errors which had crept into the
commonwealth, and after the example of the Lord himself, to abase the haughty
and elevate the humble.
This memorable order may be sung in times of great
depression, when prayer has performed her errand at the mercy-seat, and when
faith is watching for speedy deliverance. It is a song of the second advent,
concerning the nearness of the Judge with the cup of wrath.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
