Psalms 28

Yea, wait thou on the Lord. Here is the true highest type of a troubled soul’s fellowship with God, when the black fear and consciousness of weakness is enclosed in a golden ring of happy trust. Let the name of our God be first upon our lips, and the call to our wayward hearts to wait on Him be last, and then we may between think of our loneliness, and feebleness, and foes, and fears, without losing our hold of our Father’s hand. A. M.

Waiting is about the hardest duty of the child of God, and it is about his commonest duty. The Lord tells us to wait, and we ought to tell ourselves to wait; to wait patiently, to wait courageously, to wait trustfully, to wait submissively. H. C. T.—To wait on the Lord is to hold the heart open for what God gives; and so it implies subjection. It is to expect His love; and so it implies the penitence that goes before pardon. It is to believe He will give and guide; and so it implies faith. It is to hold all insubordinate and hasty impulses in restraint; and so it implies self-renunciation. It is to ask for His coming; and so it implies prayer. It is to rejoice in His presence; and so it implies thanksgiving. Subjection, penitence, faith, self-renouncement, prayer, thanksgiving—these are not elements of man’s infirmity. F. D. H.

Not frames and feelings, but God’s love and promises in Christ to sinners, are the foundation of hope. These are abundantly sufficient to inspire the soul with courage, yea, with good courage, to go on in the ways of the Lord. God has promised; expect fulfilment. Here is the exercise of faith, trust in the Lord Christ for what we stand in need of; of hope, expecting to receive all from Him; of patience, waiting continually upon Him. Most precious promise! “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint” (Isa. 40: 31). W. Mason.

Faith sets hope a-work. The heir must believe his title to an estate in reversion, before he can hope for it; faith believes its title to glory, and then hope waits for it. Did not faith feed the lamp of hope with oil, it would soon die. Faith sets love a-work, “Faith which worketh by love;” believing the mercy and merit of Christ causeth a flame of love to ascend. Faith sets patience a-work, “Be followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promise.” Faith believes the glorious rewards given to suffering. This makes the soul patient in suffering. Thus faith is the master-wheel, it sets all the other graces a-running. Watson.

1. 1 Unto thee, O LORD, will I call; My rock, be not thou deaf unto me: Lest, if thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down into the pit. 2. 2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, When I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. 3. 3 Draw me not away with the wicked, And with the workers of iniquity; Which speak peace with their neighbours, But mischief is in their hearts.

2. 4 Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings: Give them after the operation of their hands; Render to them their desert. 2. 5 Because they regard not the works of the LORD, Nor the operation of his hands, He shall break them down and not build them up. 3. 6 Blessed be the LORD, Because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.

7. The LORD is my strength and my shield ; My heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped : Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth ; And with my song will I praise him.

THIS Psalm suits the period of David’s life before he became king in Jerusalem. There is nothing in it to determine the precise occasion on which it was composed. It consists of two parts. The first five verses contain a prayer for deliverance from the portion of sinners, and for retribution on the wicked. The remaining four, after thanksgiving, end with a prayer for the people of God. M.

1. When God seems to close His ear, we must not therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for He will not long deny us a hearing. We must have answers to prayer; ours is an urgent case of dire neces- sity; surely the Lord will speak peace to our agitated minds. S.—To the request of the Syrophœnician woman, it is said, Christ “an- swered not a word,” but it is not said, He heard not a word. These two differ much. Christ often heareth when He doth not answer—His not answering is an answer, and speaks thus— “Pray on, go on and cry, for the Lord holdeth His door fast bolted,” not to keep you out, but that you may knock, and knock, and it shall be opened. Rutherford.

2. The word translated oracle is derived from the verb to speak, and seems to mean a place of speaking or conversation, like the English parlor from the French parler. Now we learn from Ex. 25 : 22, Num. 7 : 89, that the place whence God talked with Moses was the inner apartment of the tabernacle; and from 1 Kings 6 : 19, that the corresponding part of the temple bore the name here used. To this, as the de- pository of the ark and the earthly residence of God, the ancient saints looked as we look now to Christ, in whom the idea of the Mosaic sanc- tuary has been realized. A.—“Oracle” is one of the names for the most holy place where the visible glory (the Shechinah) reposed on the cover of the ark beneath the cherubim. The Hebrew word comes from a verb which is used abundantly in the sense to speak, and hence might most naturally mean the place from which God spake to His people. This corre- sponds so perfectly with the historic facts re- specting the inner sanctuary—the place where God spake with Moses—as to leave little room to question the origin and significance of this name. C.

Lift up my hands. Uplifted hands have

8. The LORD is a strength unto his people ; And he is a strong hold of salvation to his anointed. 9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance : Feed them also, and bear them up for ever.

ever been a form of devout posture, and are in- tended to signify a reaching upward toward God, a readiness, an eagerness to receive the blessing sought after. We stretch out empty hands, for we are beggars; we lift them up, for we seek heavenly supplies; we lift them toward the mercy seat of Jesus, for there our expectation dwells. S.

4. Having prayed that he may not share the destruction of the wicked, he now prays that they may not escape it. But as this is merely asking God to act as a just and holy being must act, the charge of vindictive cruelty is not merely groundless but absurd. A.—In this instance certainly there is no trace of the ex- pression of personal animosity and the mere de- sire of revenge. It is rather an appeal to God’s justice to deal with the righteous and the wicked according to their deserts. P.—David pleads here not so much his own cause as the cause of God. And by this prayer he further reminds both himself and the faithful, that although the wicked may give themselves loose reins in the commission of every species of vice with im- punity, for a time, they must at length stand before the judgment-seat of God. Calvin.

5. Mark carefully the reasons why they so richly deserve this doom—viz., because when they might see God they will not; when they might study the works of His hand and the re- tributions of His providence and might by such means learn His wisdom, justice, power, and love, they will not regard these works of His— will give no thought to their moral lessons—will neither know, love, nor obey the Great God! Therefore God will tear them down and not build them up—a figure which conceives of them as a house or a castle—not to be made more firm, but to be overthrown. Paul gives the same reason for the condemnation of the godless heathen: “Because when they knew God they did not glorify Him as God” (Rom. 1 : 21); i.e., in so far as they did know Him, they withheld from Him due honor and obedi- ence; and because they might, but would not, know Him more, and would not give Him the honor they knew to be His due. Isaiah has the same words (5 : 12) of the wicked who give themselves up to thoughtless and thought kill- ing revelry, utterly reckless of God and of all His manifestations of Himself in His works.

It should be carefully noted that this doom is not pronounced on beings who have in their created constitution no capacity for knowing God; nor are they condemned for not knowing an unrevealed God—one who has neither said nor done anything by which they might know Him. On the contrary, the wicked men of our world have both the capacity and the means of knowing God their Maker and Father. Therefore “this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and yet they have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil” (John 3: 19). Hence the obvious and perfect justice of their doom. C.

Why do men forget God, and live without Him; nay, affront God, and live in rebellion against Him, but because they consider not the instances of that wrath of His which is revealed from heaven against all unglitiness and unrighteousness of men? Why do the enemies of God’s people hate and persecute them, and devise mischief against them, but because they regard not the works God has wrought for His Church, by which He has made it appear how dear it is to Him? H.

6. In his own heart he has already received the answer to his prayer. He knows that God will fulfil his petitions, and therefore breaks out, in the glad certainty of faith, “Blessed be Jehovah,” etc. The certainty that prayer is heard anticipates its visible fulfilment. P.—God had heard the voice of his supplications. They that pray in faith may rejoice in hope. “He hath heard me (graciously accepted me), and I am as sure of a real answer as if I had it already.” What we win by prayer, we must wear with praise. Has God heard our supplications? Let us then bless His name. H.

7. The strength of Christ is made over to us by faith, for so the Scripture saith frequently, The Lord is our strength; and therefore is Christ’s strength ours, made over unto us, that we may be able to bear whatsoever lies upon us. Isaac Ambrose.—“The Lord is my strength” inwardly, “and my shield” outwardly. Faith finds both these in Jehovah, and the one not without the other, for what is a shield without strength, or strength without a shield? “My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;” the idea of the former sentence is here carried out, that outward help was granted to inward confidence. W. Wilson.—Faith substantiated things not yet seen; it altereth the tenses, saith one, and putteth the future into the present tense as here. Trapp.

My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped. Heart work is sure work; heart trust is never disappointed. Faith must come before help, but help will never be long behind hand. Every day the believer may say, “I am helped,” for the Divine assistance is vouchsafed us every moment; when more manifest help is needed, we have but to put faith into exercise, and it will be given us. “Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise Him.” The heart is mentioned twice to show the truth of his faith and his joy. Observe the adverb “greatly,” we need not be afraid of being too full of rejoicing at the remembrance of grace received. We serve a great God, let us greatly rejoice in Him. S.—The joy of a believer is seated in the heart, while in the laughter of the fool, the heart is sorrowful. It is great joy, joy unspeakable, and full of glory. The heart that truly believes shall in due time greatly rejoice; it is joy and peace in believing that we are to expect. God shall have the praise of it; when my heart greatly rejoices, with my song will I praise Him. Thus must we express our gratitude; it is the least we can do; and others will hereby be invited and encouraged to trust in Him, too. H.

There is a sense of holy relationship to God—a sense by which He who builded and guides the universe becomes the guardian of our interests; His power, wisdom, universal presence and universal government become the guarantee of our security. Sometimes there is a sweet and triumphant sense of this in the midst of the utmost peril and sorrow. There is a consciousness that He who governs all things from the infinite throne will make our very sorrow work for our glory—work for the welfare of others through us; work for our own more triumphant peace and more happy and holy vision in the world beyond. This sense of security springs from the assurance that nothing can harm him who, through the Son of God, has been affiliated with God Himself, and who has omnipotence for his defence and his shield. . . . And there is no human experience that can rival or approximate that which the soul feels when it comes to God in this consciousness of fellowship with Him—fellowship in thought, in character, in plan and in experience. Then it comes with filial confidence, uttering its requests before the Almighty as freely as if His omnipotence was no grander than our weakness, and His omniscience no vaster than our ignorance. That sense of fellowship with God is found in the experience of those who have wrought most and suffered most and conquered most in His service and for His sake. In that is joy, surpassing all joy of music, all delights of friendship; surpassing all

other joys known on the earth; a gleam of the celestial breaking into the darkness of the world! R. S. S.