Psalms 123
ButlerThe true and grand idea of a church is a society for the purpose of making men like Christ, earth like heaven; the kingdoms of the world the Kingdom of Christ. Arnold.
There is no other cause, compact, institution now on foot in the world which is at all comparable for benefit and dignity with the Church of God. It has outlived the great empires, three or four tiers of them in succession. It has created new empires, such as this of ours. It has leavened all human society with elements of advancement, by which educations, laws, liberties, sciences, inventions, constitutions, have been coming all the while into flower. It would take whole hours just to give the shining roll of names that in worth and genius, and true sainthood, have been marching out into their great history in it, for these almost nineteen hundred years. The history, I grant, is in some sense an awful history. The woes are sharp, the fires are hot, the prisons are bursting with wail; women-martyrs, child-martyrs, the general bleeding host of persecuted merit move on, as it were, in procession to die. From age to age it has been rock, as the Saviour promised, to the wrath surging heavily against it; rock, also, which is yet more strange, to the horrible rage of cruelty and crime within. Unable to be shaken by either this or that, it still stands firm as no political state or kingdom could have stood, even for a generation; till now we see it emerging, as we think, in the grace alone of the cross; in that to be full-organized, society complete, everlasting, universal, inviolable brotherhood. The Church is everlasting, the only fabric, structure, institute, society, or state that is. And how grand a thing it is that, going in hither, we can build ourselves into the eternal. Against all else a statute runs of limitation. Getting wealth we get no charter for breathing. Getting fame we shall not be on hand to hear the ring of it. Going into the healing of bodies we can only patch them up for an hour. Going into the law we give ourselves to what was made last year, and will be unmade the next. Public honors vanish, and statesmanship and states are only for a time, and commonly a very short time. Not so the Church of God, the great, everlasting all-worlds’ society; that remains, and if we put much cost and sacrifice into it, all the better. H. B.
With all our divisions the Christian Jerusalem is compact in itself together. What occupies the hearts and tongues of the myriads of worshippers that assemble themselves weekly in the sanctuaries of our beloved land, and of the millions that assemble beyond the Atlantic billows, but the one glorious Gospel of the grace of God? Yonder and yonder and yonder, whatever their name, their place, or their outward worship, are myriads of true hearts, beating with one pulse, gazing on one hope, possessed of one conviction, and praying and pressing forward to one blessed home. Robert Nisbet.
1. UNTO thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that sittest in the heavens. 2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, As the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; So our eyes look unto the LORD our God, Until he have mercy upon us.
3. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: For we are exceedingly filled with contempt. 4 Our soul is exceedingly filled With the scorning of those that are at case, And with the contempt of the proud.
ALSTED beautifully entitles this Psalm “The Eye of Hope.” “This” says Luther, “is a deep sigh of a pained heart, which looks round on all sides, and seeks friends, protectors, and comforters, but can find none. Therefore it says, ‘Where shall I, a poor despised man, find refuge? I am not able to preserve myself; wisdom and plans fail me among the multitude of adversaries who assault me; therefore I come to Thee, O my God, to Thee I lift my eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens.’ He places over against each other the Inhabitant of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, and reminds himself that, though the world be high and powerful, God is higher still. What shouldst thou do, then, when the world despises and insults thee? Turn thine eyes thither, and see that God, with His beloved angels and His elect, looks down upon thee, rejoices in thee, and loves thee.’
This Psalm is either the sigh of the exile, toward the close of the captivity looking in faith and patience for the deliverance which he had reason to hope was now at hand; or it is the sigh of those who, having already returned to their native land, were still exposed to “the scorn and contempt” of the Samaritans and others, who, favored by the Persian Government, took every opportunity of harassing and insulting the Jews. Compare Neh. 2:19, “They laughed us to scorn and despised us,” with v.4 of the Psalm, “The scorn of them that are at ease, the contempt of the proud.” P.—It makes two main points: How we lift up our eyes unto the Great Lord above, and why; under what stress of trial—viz., the reproach and scorn which fills and oppresses our souls. The infant colony was feeble; their enemies strong, and as the history shows, very insulting. C.
The Psalm should be dear to us also for its own sake. It gives brief but impressive expression to all the gentler and nobler moods of the man who “suffers, and is strong”—to his sense of utter dependence on God, to his entire submission to the Divine will, to his eager and watchful obedience, to his patience while that will ordains that he shall only “stand and wait,” to his unfaltering trust in the rectitude and goodness of that will, to his hope that it will yet take on forms of grace, to the charity which constrains him to include his fellows in his prayer for the succors of heavenly mercy. Cox.—This Psalm is but short, and therefore a very fit example to show the force of prayer not to consist in many words, but in fervency of spirit. For great and weighty matters may be comprised in a few words, if they proceed from the spirit and the unspeakable groanings of the heart, especially when our necessity is such as will not suffer any long prayer. Every prayer is long enough if it be fervent and proceed from a heart that understandeth the necessity of the saints. Luther.
1,2. The destinies of all men and more especially of the Church are in the hand of Him who sits enthroned in the unapproachable glory of heaven as the King who rules over all things and the Judge who decides all things. Up to Him the poet lifts his eyes, so also the Church; just as the eyes of servants are directed toward the hand of their lord, and the eyes of a maid toward the hand of her mistress; for this hand regulates the whole house, and they look for its becks and directions with most eager attention. The people of Israel are Jehovah’s servants; the community of Israel is Jehovah’s maid. In His hand lies its future. He will at length have pity upon His own. Therefore its longing gaze is turned toward Him, without wearying, until He graciously turn its distress. D.
2. “As the eyes of slaves,” watching anxiously the least movement, the smallest sign of their master’s will. The image expresses complete and absolute dependence. Savary, “Letters on Egypt,” says, “The slaves stand silent at the bottom of the rooms with their hands crossed over their breasts. With their eyes fixed upon their master they seek to anticipate every one of his wishes.” In the Psalm the eye directed to the hand of God is the oculus sperans, the eye which waits, and hopes, and is patient, looking only to Him and none other for help. P.
The believer glories in the name and office of a servant of Christ, or in being as Paul called himself, the slave of the Lord Jesus; he knows that his Saviour is all-wise, and almighty, and merciful and good, and that if He will only take the ordering of our concerns, and of those of the Church and of the world into His own hands, it must be wisdom to leave them there, and to seek and implicitly to follow His orderings. The idea of there being anything slavish and demeaning in such service is unknown to the Christian, for he seeks to have every thought brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. It will be felt by all that such a service both evidences and must foster high attainments in the Christian life. Under a skilled business man or a good housekeeper, attentive servants will be able to do the work of those that employ them, and to know their business and to gain their confidence so that it is felt to be safe to leave all in their hands, if need be. Such a servant is accounted invaluable, and will be greatly beloved. So is it in Christ’s
service. We may be sure that one who is ever eyeing the Master will know much about Him, His glory, His purposes, His work and will, and will have many delightful evidences of His love and favor. The Queen of Sheba said to Solomon, “Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom.” A greater than Solomon is here. Unspeakably precious is it to have attained to such service under the Master. W. H. Lewis.