Psalms 11
Butler1. In the LORD put I my trust : How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain ? 2 For, lo, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string, That they may shoot in darkness at the up- right in heart. 3 If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do ? 4 The LORD is in his holy temple, The LORD, his throne is in heaven ;
THE singer is in danger of his life ; and tim- orous, faint-hearted counsellors would fain per- suade him to seek safety in flight. But, full of unshaken faith in God, he rejects their counsel, believing that Jehovah, the righteous King, though He tries His servants, does not forsake them. Not the righteous, but the wicked have need to fear. The Psalm is so short and so general in its character that it is not easy to say to what circumstances in David’s life it should be referred. P.
1-3. David rejects the counsel of his friends to save his life by flight. Hidden in Jehovah, he needs no other refuge. However well meant and well grounded the counsel is, he finds it too timid, and sees himself raised in God above the necessity of following it. D.
1. In Jehovah—under the shadow of His wings—have I found refuge ; I need no other refuge : how can ye say to me, etc. ; my feet are on the true rock, why should I look else- where for safety ? This is the full force of the expression. There is moreover a force in the perfect, “I have found.” It is an exclamation of joyful confidence in the thought that he has such a refuge ; it is not yet to seek. The ad- vice here given, and which he repels, is that of timid and desponding friends, who would per- suade him that all is lost, and that the highest wisdom is to yield to circumstances, and to seek safety not in resistance, but in flight. But in fact the voice which thus speaks is the voice of the natural heart, of the selfish and therefore short-sighted and cowardly instinct, which al- ways asks first not what is right, but what is safe. The advice may be well meant, but it is unworthy. This is the victory that over- cometh the world, even our faith. But it is
His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.
5. The LORD trieth [proveth] the righteous : But the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares ; Fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. 7 For the LORD is righteous ; he loveth right- eousness [righteous deeds] ; The upright shall behold his face.
often a sorer trial for faith to have to withstand the pleadings of well-meaning friends than to arm itself against open enemies.
3. A further reason for the adoption of a timid policy. All is in hopeless disorder and confusion. The foundations, or “pillars,” are the principles of law and order which were now subverted. P.—The pillars or founda- tions are those of social order or society itself. These are said to be destroyed, when truth and righteousness prevail no longer, but the inter- course of men is governed by mere selfishness. The question in the last clause implies that the righteous has effected nothing, in opposition to the prevalent iniquity. The past tense repre- sents this as a matter of actual experience, but as one which still continues. The true relation of the tenses is correctly given in the Prayer- Book version. For the foundations will be cast down, and what hath the righteous done ? A.
True foundations : God is God, before all things preordaining, revolving within Himself and all things else, as He pleases, the great foundation given to Moses in the bush—“I am !” This good God has given us a revela- tion. We can prove it by every evidence : the external evidence—prophecy ; the internal evi- dence—the harmony ; the experimental evidence —what it has been to many, and what it is to me. In the revelation there is shown a way— the only way—by which a just God can forgive a sinner. He has found and accepted a Substi- tute who outweighs the whole world—His own Son. To communicate this thought and to give this faith, there is a Holy Ghost, Him- self also God ; and He being spirit, works in the spirit of a man, and creates in his heart trust and love toward Jesus Christ. As soon as by that Spirit a man really trusts, as a sinner, in Christ, he is united to Christ. God sees him in Christ, and in Christ God sees him righteous. By the same union, and through the operation of the Holy Ghost, that man, now a living member in Christ, has a motive sufficient to change his whole life and to make him do all good works. God, inspiration, Christ, the Holy Ghost, faith, good works—these are the foundations. There is nothing in the world so sure as a believer’s foundation. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous is an everlasting foundation. J. V.
4-7. The answer of faith, the glance directed from earth to heaven, the full trust in the righteous and all-seeing Lord, the confidence that whatever the apparent confusion and disorder of the lower world, there is an eye that sees and a hand that directs all, that even the suffering of the righteous is part of a Divine purpose of love. P.—The discourse of the counsellors who are afraid for David is now ended. He justifies the confidence in God with which he began his hymn. Above all that takes place upon earth, and disheartens those who are of little faith, Jehovah is enthroned. Above the earth are the heavens, and in heaven stands the throne of Jehovah, the King of kings. And this heavenly temple, this heavenly palace, is the place whence comes the ultimate decision of all earthly things. Men, righteous and unrighteous, lie open to the eyes of Jehovah, which see through everything, and to His glances, which search everything through and through. He tries the righteous, i.e., seeing into the depths of his soul, He recognizes that his inmost nature is righteous and able to stand the test, and therefore He lovingly protects him, just as the righteous lovingly adheres to Him. The wicked, however, and him that loves the violence done by the stronger to those who are weaker, His soul hates, i.e., He hates him with all the energy of His holy nature. The more intense this hatred is, so much the more fearful will be the judgments in which it discharges itself. D.
4. The Psalmist, saddened by the breaking down of those supports on which he had relied, turns as by instinct to the sublime and consoling truth that God is in His holy temple, Jehovah’s throne is in heaven, His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. There He reigns in absolute life, with unwasting powers. The eternal mountains may disappear; the firmest human works may vanish, like a dream of the night, but His throne is settled forever in heaven. Solitary, helpless as I am, I may turn to Him, whose love is as undecaying as His throne; who has made me in His own image, and therefore cannot despise my prayer; who reigns for the very purpose of doing good; from whom life and happiness flow in ceaseless currents. His Church on earth, when beset with enemies and obstacles apparently invincible, is awakened by that very experience to look to Him whose eyes behold her with inexpressible complacency, whose providence in its ample range comprehends the evil as well as the good, and with the same ease abates the one and prospers the other. B. B. E.
The Lord has not only His residence, but His throne, in heaven, and He has set the dominion thereof in the earth (Job 38: 33); for, having prepared His throne in the heavens, His kingdom ruleth over all (103: 19). Hence the heavens are said to rule (Dan. 4: 26). Let us by faith see God on His throne; on His throne of glory, infinitely transcending the splendor and majesty of earthly princes; on His throne of government, giving law, giving motion, and giving aim, to all the creatures; on His throne of judgment, rendering to every man according to his works; and on His throne of grace, to which His people may come boldly for mercy and grace; we shall then see no reason to be discouraged by the pride and power of oppressors, or any of the afflictions that attend the righteous. H.—Though justice, faith, and truth may seem to have fled from the earth, Jehovah will never suffer the boundaries which separate right from wrong to be effaced. He continues holy and unchangeable on His heavenly throne, and is able in a moment to reverse the most desperate condition of His servants. Anon.
His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men; He not only sees them, but He sees through them; not only knows all they say and do, but knows what they think, what they design, and how they really stand affected, whatever they pretend. We may know what men seem to be, but He knows what they are, as the refiner knows what the value of the gold is when he has tried it. God is said to try with His eyes, and His eyelids, because He knows men, not as earthly princes know men, by report and representation, but by His own strict inspection, which cannot err or be imposed upon. This may comfort us when we are deceived in men, even in men that we think we have tried, that God’s judgment of men, we are sure, is according to truth. H.—Of one thing we may be certain: the infinitely holy and omniscient Judge takes cognizance of what passes in human minds. He cannot look with indifference on the thoughts, imaginations, wishes, purposes, choices and habits of our souls. Slightly as we regard them, each has its moral estimate in God’s account. And this gives a serious importance to inward things, which, if duly pondered, might modify our whole view of life. J. W. A.—God sees each man as perfectly as if there were no other creature in the universe. He sees us always; He sees us entirely, reading the recesses of the soul as readily as the glances of the eye. Is not this a sufficient ground of confidence, and an abundant answer to the solicitations of despondency? S.
5. Jehovah the righteous will prove, will prove the righteous, and the wicked and the lover of violence his soul hates. The sentence might also be divided thus: Jehovah will prove the righteous and the wicked, and the lover of violence his soul hates. A.—Trieth. The same verb as in the previous verse, but used here in a more definite sense, with reference to the result of the trial, puts them into the furnace (the word is used of the testing of metals), that they may come forth as pure gold. P.—The Lord tries all the children of men that He may do them justice; but He tries the righteous that He may do them good in their latter end (Deut. 8:16). H.—They are precious to Him, and therefore He refines them with afflictions. None of the Lord’s children may hope to escape from trial, nor, indeed, in our right minds, would any of us desire to do so, for trial is the channel of many blessings. S.
6. The figures in this verse are borrowed from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. David, who has just said that Jehovah abhors the wicked, thus places himself, as it were, on the Lord’s side. Ewald reads “coals of fire,” and arranges the clauses as follows:
“On the wicked he raineth coals of fire and brimstone;
A burning wind is the portion of their cup.”
The first line gives, as he says, the image of a fiery rain from heaven, as in the overthrow from Sodom; the second, that of a poisonous Simoom, drunk in, as it were, from an envenomed cup. P.
Figures of speech these are, indeed, but figures of most fearful import! Their application to the wicked in the future world is not in the least softened and toned down by saying that these are only the judgments which God sends on wicked nations and cruel oppressors in the present world. For if, despite of the necessary imperfections and the manifold limitations of judgment upon men in this world, such figures come from the lips of God to express it, what will be the unmitigated, the perfect retribution of the eternal world? What figures will ever be found adequate to measure that shoreless ocean of the sinner’s woe? H. C.
Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive in His universe, till all enemies shall be put under His feet, and God shall be all in all. C. Kingsley.—Place a God of love on a throne, and He becomes, He must become, a God of justice; His love compels Him to arm His right hand with vengeance, and to make the workers of iniquity feel its stroke. A governor who would treat alike vice and virtue could not reign long over one petty kingdom of the earth, could not rule a single parish of our own kingdom, no, nor a single house; how much less this huge world, a mighty universe, a crowded earth and an almost boundless heaven! C. Bradley.
The threatenings and rebukes, the acts of retributive judgment, which are contained in the revelation of God, are no limitation nor disturbance of the clear and happy faith that all which we behold is full of blessing, and that all comes from the Father’s hand. They are the garb in which the Love needs to array itself when it comes in contact with man’s sin and man’s evil. The love of God appears no less when it teaches us in grave sad tones that “the wages of sin is death,” than when it proclaims that “the gift of God is eternal life.” Love threatens that it may never have to execute its threats. Love warns that we may be wise in time. Love prophesies that its sad forebodings may not be fulfilled. And love smites with lighter strokes of premonitory chastisements, that we may never need or feel “the whips of scorpions.” A. M.
The justice which inflicts punishment is only benevolence in another form. And this it is that makes the infliction intolerable. How much more terrible to the wayward child are the blows inflicted by a weeping, affectionate father, than if received from an enemy! God is that affectionate Father; and He punishes only because He loves the universe more than the individual; and He has exhausted the stores of infinite mercy in vain to save him. Wicked men sometimes tell us that they are not afraid to trust themselves in the hands of infinite benevolence; whereas it is eminently this quality of the Divine character which, above all others, they have reason to fear. For if, even in this world of probation and hope, God finds it necessary to mingle so much severity with goodness, what but a cup of unmixed bitterness shall be put into his hands who goes into eternity unrenewed and unpardoned, and finds that even infinite benevolence has become his eternal enemy! E. Hitchcock.
7. The concluding verse grounds the different bearing of God toward the righteous and the unrighteous, and the dismal fate of the latter, upon God’s righteousness. Just as Jehovah Himself is righteous, so also both on His own part and on the part of man He loves deeds of righteousness. D.
The upright shall behold His face. Not only does David make Jehovah his refuge in calamity, but he can rejoice in the thought that he shall behold the face of God—behold now the light of His countenance even in the midst of gloom and darkness. Did his hope reach beyond this, and are we to suppose that here he looks forward to seeing God in the resurrection? We cannot tell. To us, however, his words may be the expression of a “hope full of immortality.” P.—To enjoy this vision of God, this vision which is softened by love, is the highest honor which God in His grace can bestow upon a man; it is the very blessedness reserved for the upright (140: 13). It cannot be said that what is meant is a vision of God beyond the grave, but just as little can it be said that it is exclusively a vision on this side of it. To the Old Testament consciousness the future undoubtedly loses itself in the night of Sheol. Faith, however, broke through this night and trusted in a future intuition of God (Job 19: 26). The New Testament redemption has realized this postulate of faith, inasmuch as the Redeemer, having broken through the night of the realm of the dead, has led up the saints of the Old Testament along with Himself, and has translated them into the sphere of the Divine love that is clearly revealed in heaven. D.
All the attributes ascribed to God—such as truthfulness, righteousness, omnipotence, omomniscience, holiness—are essential elements of the highest and most perfect personality. Only a personal God can be thought of as a God of love, and as a good and holy God. He would not be God were He not personal. But we do not merely think of God. In worship and love we exalt ourselves to Him; we pray to Him, we yield our whole being to Him, and in doing so we feel ourselves blessed. The relation of man to God is a personal one, and is experienced as such. We can worship, revere and love only a personal God, not the abstract ghost of the Absolute or of any unalterable Substance. Only the highest personal Being is worthy of the greatest affection; only He can claim to be supreme and holy; only a personal God can we trust; only to a personal God, whose love and goodness we can understand, can we yield ourselves, and only when we commit ourselves to such a Being can we be exalted, comforted, and blessed. This is the decisive point; all religious faith finds satisfaction only in the idea of a personal God. All Divine worship and reverence, all religion and all religious exaltation stand or fall with faith in a personal God. This faith is the essence of all religion, particularly of the Christian religion, which teaches us to apprehend God as a loving Father. Faith in a personal God is not in antagonism with experimental knowledge, but supplements it and completes our view of the universe and of life. Faith in a personal God is the vital element in all culture and progress, for all culture and progress ultimately spring from a healthy conception and realization of the eternal destiny of man, which destiny reveals the infinite value of life and gives to life its consecration and exaltation. Sommer.
God is the only happiness of a rational and immortal soul. The soul that was made for God can find no happiness but in God; it came from God, and can never be happy but by returning to Him again and resting in Him. With Him for your portion, you have all: you have infinite wisdom to direct you, infinite knowledge to teach you, infinite mercy to pity and save you, infinite love to care for and comfort you, and infinite power to protect and keep you. J. Mason.