Alexander Maclaren

“ But his truer self silences these lamentations, and cheers the feebler "soul" with clear notes of trust and hope, blown in the refrain, like some trumpet-clang rallying dispirited fugitives to the fight. The stimulus serves for a moment; but once more courage fails, and once more, at yet greater length and with yet sadder tones, plaints and longings are wailed forth. Once more, too, the higher self repeats its half-rebuke, half-encouragement. So ends the first of the psalms; but obviously it is no real ending, for the victory over fear is not won, and longing has not become blessed. ”

“ All human sympathy and help are far away, and the psalmist's only familiar friend is—darkness. There is an infinitude of despair in that sad irony. But there is a gleam of hope, though faint and far, like faint daylight seen from the innermost recesses of a dark tunnel, in his recognition that his dismal solitude is the work of God's hand; for, if God has made a heart or a life empty of human love, it is that He may Himself fill it with His own sweet and all-compensating presence. ”

“ Through God's strict adherence to His covenant, not by any power of their own, shall they be lifted above foes and fears. "The glory of their strength art Thou." In themselves they are weak, but Thou, not any arm of flesh, art their strength, and by possession of Thee they are not only clothed with might, but resplendent with beauty. Human power is often unlovely; God-given strength is, like armour inlaid with gold, ornament as well as defence. "In Thy favour our horn shall be exalted." The psalmist identifies himself at last with the people, whose blessedness he has so glowingly celebrated. ”

“ It is the prerogative of faith to make pictures drawn by memory pale beside those painted by hope. Light and Troth—i.e., Loving-kindness and Faithfulness in fulfilling promises—are like two angels, despatched from the presence-chamber of God, to guide with gentleness the exile's steps. That is to say, because God is mercy and faithfulness, the return of the psalmist to the home of his heart is sure. God being what He is, no longing soul can ever remain unsatisfied. The actual return to the Temple is desired because thereby new praise will be occasioned. ”

“ There is one safe stronghold, and only one. He who conceits himself to be strong in his own evil, and, instead of relying on God, trusts in material resources, will sooner or later be levelled with the ground, dragged, resisting vainly the tremendous grasp, from his tent, and laid prostrate, as melancholy a spectacle as a great tree blown down by tempest, with its roots turned up to the sky and its arms with drooping leaves trailing on the ground.
A swift turn of feeling carries the singer to rejoice in the contrast of his own lot. ”

“ The mountains are here thought of as lofty and barren. If waving harvests clothe their gaunt sides, how will the vales laugh in plentiful crops! As the earth yields her increase, so the people of the king shall be multiplied, and from all his cities they shall spring forth abundant as grass. That figure would bear much expansion; for what could more beautifully set forth rapidity of growth, close-knit community, multiplication of units, and absorption of these in a lovely whole, than the picture of a meadow clothed with its grassy carpet? Such hopes had only partial fulfilment in Israel. ”

“ The psalmist's fervent love for Jerusalem is something more than national pride. It is the apotheosis of that emotion, clarified and hallowed into religion. Zion is founded by God Himself. The mountains on which it stands are made holy by the Divine dwelling. On their heads shines a glory before which the light that lies on the rock crowned by the Parthenon or on the seven hills of Rome pales. Not only the Temple mountain is meant, but the city is the psalmist's theme. ”

“ When these are received, they will fall like morning sunbeams on stony and dumb lips, which before were only parted to let out sighs, and will draw forth music of praise. There are longings which never are satisfied; but God lets no soul that thirsts for Him perish for lack of the water of life. Wisdom bids us fix our desires on that Sovereign Good, to long for which is ennobling and blessed, and to possess which is rest and the beginning of heaven. ”

“ God made man in His own likeness. Men who have lost that likeness make God in theirs, and so sink deeper in evil till He speaks. Then comes an apocalypse to the dreamer, when there is flashed before him what God is and what he himself is. How terror-stricken the gaze of these eyes before which God arrays the deeds of a life, seen for the first time in their true character! It will be the hypocrite's turn to keep silence then, and his thought of a complaisant God like himself will perish before the stern reality. ”

“ Such juxtaposition is all that is needed to show how little he has to fear from the hostile crew. On one hand are they, in their insolence and masterfulness, eagerly hunting after his life; on the other is God with His infinite pity and loving-kindness. Happy are they who can discern high above dangers and foes the calm presence of the only God, and, with hearts undistracted and undismayed, can oppose to all that assails them the impenetrable shield of the Name of the Lord! ”

“ A thought, be it good or bad, can be dealt with when it is made articulate. Formulating vague conceptions is like cutting a channel in a bog for the water to run. One gets it together in manageable shape, and the soil is drained. So the end of the despondent half of the psalm is marked by the bringing to distinct speech of the suspicions which floated in the singer's mind and made him miserable. The Selah bids us dwell on the questions, so as to realise their gravity and prepare ourselves for their answer. ”

“ The psalmist's consciousness that he speaks by Divine inspiration, and that his message imports all men, is grandly expressed in his introductory summons. The very name which he gives to the world suggests the latter thought; for it means—the world considered as fleeting. Since we dwell in so transitory an abode, it becomes us to listen to the deep truths of the psalm. These have a message for high and low, for rich and poor. They are like a keen lancet to let out too great fulness of blood from the former, and to teach moderation, lowliness, and care for the Unseen. ”

“ The core of judgment is mercy. It is worthy of God to smite the oppressor and to save the "afflicted," who not only suffer, but trust. When He makes His judgments reverberate from on high, earth should keep an awed stillness, as nature does when thunder peals. When some gigantic and hoary iniquity crashes to its fall, there is a moment of awed silence after the hideous tumult.
The last strophe is mainly a summons to praise God for His manifestation of delivering judgment. ”

“ The heart that has felt how innumerable are God's thoughts and deeds of love is not utterly reduced to despair, even while it beholds a sea of troubles rolling its white-crested billows shoreward as far as the horizon. The sky stretches beyond them, and the true numberlessness of God's mercies outdoes the great yet really limited range of apparently numberless sins or sorrows, the consequences of sin. "Mine iniquities have overtaken me" like pursuing foes, and every calamity that held him in its grip was a child of a sin of his. ”

“ Now we behold the gentle flow of the river, gliding through the city, with music in its ripples and sunshine in its flash and refreshment in its waters, parting into many arms and yet one in diversity, and bringing life and gladness wherever it comes. Not with noise nor tumult, but in silent communication, God's grace and peace refresh the soul. Power is loud, but Omnipotence is silent. ”

“ For him, all life will be illumined by God's counsel, which will guide him as a shepherd leads his sheep, and which he will obey as a sheep follows his shepherd. How small the delights of the prosperous men seem now! And can there be an end to that sweet alliance, such as smites earthly good? There are blessings which bear in themselves assurance of their own undyingness; and this psalmist, who had nothing to say of the future retribution falling on the sinner whose delights were confined to earth, feels that death cannot put a period to a union so blessed and spiritual as was his with God. ”

“ Like some nomads brought into city life, they are always longing to escape. The caged eagle sits on the highest point of his prison, and looks with filmed eye to the free heavens. Hearts that long for God have an irrepressible instinct stinging them to ever-new attainments. The consciousness of "not having already attained" is no pain, when the hope of attaining is strong. Rather, the very blessedness of life lies in the sense of present imperfection, the effort for completeness, and the assurance of reaching it. ”

“ As the companion psalm says, "The God of Jacob is our refuge," this exclaims, "As we have heard, so have we seen."
But not only does the deliverance link the present with the past, but it flings a steady light into the future. "God shall establish her for ever." The city is truly "the eternal city," because God dwells in it. The psalmist was thinking of the duration of the actual Jerusalem, the imperfect embodiment of a great idea. But whatever may be its fate, the heart of his confidence is no false vision; for God's city will outlast the world. ”

“ Unless a soul knows that yearning for a home in stillness, "afar from the sphere of our sorrow," it will remain a stranger to many high and noble things. The psalmist was moved to utter this longing by his painful consciousness of encompassing evils; but the longing is more than a desire for exemption from these. It is the cry of the homeless soul, which, like the dove from the ark, finds no resting-place in a world full of carrion, and would fain return whence it came. "O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and we are unquiet till we find rest in Thee." ”

“ With deep truth, the command to love God with all the heart is based upon His Unity—"Hear, O Israel: The Lord thy God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" (Deut. vi. 4) . The very conception of religion requires that it should be exclusive, and should dominate the whole nature. It is only God who is great enough to fill and engage all our capacities. Only the mass of the central sun is weighty enough to make giant orbs its satellites, and to wheel them in their courses. There is no tranquillity nor any power in lives frittered away on a thousand petty loves. ”

“ When the rain comes in the desert, what was baked earth is soon rich pasture, and the dry torrent beds, where the white stones glittered ghastly in the sunshine, are musical with rushing streams and fringed with budding oleanders. On that telegraph a message is flashed upwards and an answer speeds downwards, in a moment of time. Many of God's gifts are delayed by Love; but the soul that truly desires Him has never long to wait for a gift that equals its desire. ”

“ This psalm has no reference to life beyond the grave; but it finds in present communion by waiting and hope, emancipation from the curse of fleeting triviality which haunts every life separated from Him, like that which the Christian hope of immortality gives. God is the significant figure which gives value to the row of ciphers of which every life is without Him made up. Blessed are they who are driven by earth's vanity and drawn by God's fulness of love and power to fling themselves into His arms and nestle there! ”

“ An eye that has seen God sees little terror in the most terrible things.
The psalmist knows that a soul which trusts has a right to God's gracious dealings, and he is not afraid to urge his confidence as a plea with God. The boldness of the plea is not less indicative of the depth and purity of his religious experience than are the tender metaphors in which it is expressed. What truer or richer description of trust could be given than that which likens it to the act of a fugitive betaking himself to the shelter of some mountain fastness, impregnable and inaccessible? ”

“ Communion with God is the source of flourishing and fruitfulness, and the guarantee of its own continuance. Nothing in the changes of outward life need touch it. The mists which lay on the psalmist's horizon are cleared away for us, who know that "for ever and aye" designates a proper eternity of dwelling in the higher house and drinking the full dew of God's loving-kindness. Such consciousness of present blessedness in communion lifts a soul to prophetic realisation of deliverance, even while no change has occurred in circumstances. ”

“ Not only personal considerations move him to his prayer; but, pressing as these are, and shrill as is the cry for personal deliverance, the psalmist is not so absorbed in self as that he cannot widen his thoughts and desires to a world-wide manifestation of Divine righteousness, of which his own escape will be a tiny part. Such recognition of the universal in the particular is the prerogative in lower walks of the poet and the man of genius; it is the strength and solace of the man who lives by faith and links all things with God. ”

“ But the psalmist thinks that that "freedom" is loathsome, not desirable, for it means removal from the stir of a life, the heaviest duties and cares of which are better than the torpid immunity from these, which makes the state of the dead a dreary monotony. They lie stretched out and motionless. No ripple of cheerful activity stirs that stagnant sea. One unvarying attitude is theirs. It is not the stillness of rest which prepares for work, but of incapacity of action or of change. ”

“ If a man has "the ways" in his heart, he will pass through "the valley of weeping," and turn it into a "place of fountains." His very tears will fill the wells. Sorrow borne as a help to pilgrimage changes into joy and refreshment. The remembrance of past grief nourishes the soul which is aspiring to God. God puts our tears into His bottle; we lose the benefit of them, and fail to discern their true intent, unless we gather them into a well, which may refresh us in many a weary hour thereafter. If we do, there will be another source of fertility, plentifully poured out upon our life's path. ”

“ The field of history is littered with broken, abandoned weapons, once flourished in hands long since turned to dust; and the city and throne of God against which they were lifted remain unharmed. The voice which melted the earth speaks at the close of the psalm; not now with destructive energy, but in warning, through which tones of tenderness can be caught. God desires that foes would cease their vain strife before it proves fatal. ”

“ And the mention of the serpent stimulates the poet's imagination to yet another figure, which puts most graphically that disregard of warnings, entreaties, and every voice, human or Divine, that marks long-practised, customary sinfulness. There can be no more striking symbol of determined disregard to the calls of patient Love and the threats of outraged Justice than that of the snake lying coiled, with its head in the centre of its motionless folds, as if its ears were stopped by its own bulk, while the enchanter plays his softest notes and speaks his strongest spells in vain. ”