Psalms 40

He will join us as we journey, even when our hearts are sore with loss. He will walk with us by the way, and make our chili hearts glow. He will sit with us at the table—however humble the meal, and He will not leave us when we discern Him. Strangers we are indeed here—but not solitary, for we are “strangers with Thee.” And this blessed relationship with God is in itself a prophecy of a more perfect communion and a heavenly house. They who are strangers with Him will one day be at “home with the Lord.” And in the light of that blessed hope the transiency of this life changes its whole aspect, loses the last trace of sadness, and becomes a solemn joy. Lives rooted in God through faith in Jesus Christ are not vanity. Let us lay hold of Him with a loving grasp—and “we shall live also” because He lives, as He lives, so long as He lives. The brief days of earth will be blessed while they last, and fruitful of what shall never pass. We shall have Him with us while we journey—and all our journeyings will lead to rest in Him. A. M.

13. The subject of his petition, not that he may escape death and live always in this life, because he knows that he must go hence; but that he may be recovered from his afflictions, and that he may continue longer in this life.

Such a prayer is lawful when offered in submission to the will of God. The reasons for this petition. That he may remove by his future life the calumnies that had been heaped upon him. That he may have brighter evidences of his interest in the Divine favor. That he may become a blessing to others, his family and nation. G. Rogers.—The Christian prays to be spared above all that he may do more for God, for his fellow-men. He knows that lengthened days, unless they serve these ends, can be no boon at all. R. Duckworth.

A wanderer indeed he is, and a transient guest on earth; but what of that, if he be God’s guest? All that is sorrowful is drawn off from the thought when we realize our connection with God. We are in God’s house; the host, not the guest, is responsible for the housekeeping. We need not feel life lonely if He be with us, nor its shortness sad. It is not a shadow, a dream, a breath, if it be rooted in Him. And thus the sick man has conquered his gloomy thoughts, even though he sees little before him but the end; and he is not cast down even though his desires are all summed up in one for a little respite and healing, ere the brief trouble of earth be done with: “O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more.” A. M.

1. I WAITED patiently for the LORD; And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay; And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: Many shall see it, and fear, And shall trust in the LORD. 4 Blessed is the man that maketh the LORD his trust, And respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. 5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonderful works which thou hast done, And thy thoughts which are to us-ward: They cannot be set in order unto thee;

If I would declare and speak of them, They are more than can be numbered.

6. Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. 7 Then said I, Lo, I am come; In the roll of the book it is written of me: 8 I delight to do thy will, O my God; Yea, thy law is within my heart. 9 I have published righteousness in the great congregation; Lo, I will not refrain my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. 10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart;

I have declared thy faithfulness and thy sal- vation : I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congrega- tion. 11 Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD : Let thy lovingkindness and thy truth con- tinually preserve me. 12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about, Mine iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up ; They are more than the hairs of mine head, and my heart hath failed me. 13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me : Make haste to help me, O LORD.

THIS Psalm consists of two parts. The first (vs. 1-10) tells the story of God’s mercies in a former time of trouble ; the second (vs. 11-18) is a cry for the like help and deliverance, now that fresh calamities are come. The writer, looking back to the past, tells how he had been brought into the deepest abyss of misery ; he had been like one falling into a pit, or sinking in a deep morass, where there was no resting- place for his feet ; but God of His great mercy had heard him when he cried, had delivered him from his trouble, had set his feet on a rock, and established his goings ; and not only had He done this, but He had also given him a heart and a tongue to praise Him (v. 3). Then follows the expression of his feelings at the time. Here, after speaking of the blessedness of trusting in Jehovah, and of the wonders of His goodness, not only to the singer himself, but to all Israel, he further declares what had been the great lesson of his affliction—how he had learned that there was a better sacrifice than that of bulls and goats, even the sacrifice of an obedient will ; and how, moreover, he had found that this truth which God had opened his ears to receive (v. 6) was in most perfect har- mony with the truth taught in the written law (v. 7) ; and lastly, how, constrained by a sense of gratitude, he had published to “the great congregation” the lovingkindness and truth of the Lord.

In the second division of the Psalm he pleads the past, and his own conduct in the past, as a ground for renewed mercies being vouchsafed to him, now that he is in fresh trouble, bowed down by the burden of his sins (v. 9), and cruelly pursued by his enemies (v. 14). Thrice

14. Let them be ashamed and confounded to- gether That seek after my soul to destroy it : Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonour That delight in my hurt. 15 Let them be desolate by reason of their shame That say unto me, Aha, Aha. 16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee : Let such as love thy salvation say contin- ually, The LORD be magnified. 17 But I am poor and needy ; Yet the LORD thinketh upon me : Thou art my help and my deliverer ; Make no tarrying, O my God.

he prays earnestly for himself (vs. 11, 13, 17) ; the last time, faith having vanquished in the struggle, there mingles with the cry for help the touching expression of confidence in God : “But as for me, miserable and helpless though I be, the Lord thinketh upon me.” With these personal petitions are joined others against the malice of his enemies (vs. 14, 15), and interces- sion on behalf of all those who, like himself, love and seek Jehovah. This second part, or rather the portion of it from v. 13 to v. 17, ap- pears again, in an independent form, as Psalm 70. But it is, I think, almost certain that the Psalm in its present form is the original, and the latter verses were subsequently detached and slightly altered, in order to form a distinct poem. P.

1. The words “patient,” “patiently,” have chiefly lost their original meaning in English, and a secondary one has become the primary. “Patient,” from the Latin “patiens,” orig- inally meant a sufferer. The doctor’s “pa- tient” holds this idea still ; and we also speak of Christ’s “passion,” not as we speak of a passionate man, but purely in the old sense of His suffering. But in almost all connections we drop the old idea of suffering, and think only of quiet endurance, longsuffering, making prominent the idea of quietness and self-con- trol. In our passage we must go back to the original sense suffer. “I waited sufferingly, intensely, with earnest longings, an intensity of feeling which amounted to real suffering.” This was what our translators meant to express, and according to the usage of their times did express. The Hebrew idiom also gives the idea of intense waiting, a longing, which involved very strong emotion. C.—Patience is the spirit and demeanor of the living martyr trusting in the Word and faithfulness of God. It is the serenity of the soul amid the fiercest storms of trial and calamity, as well as the brightest days of sunshine and happiness. It is an unruffled sea in all winds; a thread even spun with every wheel of providence; a sufferer neither without tears nor without hope; neither murmuring nor presuming; neither despising chastisement nor fainting when corrected; affected with all, cast down with nothing; quiet when tossed, very quiet when extremely tossed; expecting his salvation from God when none can be had from man. “Here is the patience of the saints.” R. Bond.

How reasonable it is that we wait! He is a King well worth waiting on; and there is in the very waiting on Him an honor and happiness far above us. And the things we seek are great: forgiveness of sins, evidence of sonship and heirship; heirship of a kingdom; and we condemned rebels. Further, the attendance that this reason enforces is sweetened by the consideration of His wisdom and love, that He hath foreseen and chosen the very hour for each mercy fit for us, and will not slip it a moment. Never any yet repented their waiting, but found it fully recompensed with the opportune answer in such a time as then they are forced to confess was the only best. I waited patiently, says the Psalmist, but it was all well bestowed, He inclined to me and heard my cry; and then he afterward falls into admiration of the Lord’s method, His wonderful workings and thoughts to usward. L.

Some prayers are not answered at the time, because those who offer them have to be taught the grace of waiting patiently for the Lord; they have to learn more fully to walk by faith, not by sight; they have to learn to take the promise of God against all appearances, and to remember that heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s word shall not pass away. But whatever be the reasons for the apparent silence of God, we may rest assured that hearing prayer is the law of His kingdom. Old Testament and New alike bear witness to this. Every verse of the Psalms proclaims it. Alike by precept and example our Lord constantly enforced it. Every apostle takes up the theme and urges the duty and the privilege. W. G. B.

The same spirit of faith which teaches a man to cry earnestly teaches him to wait patiently; for, as it assures him the mercy is in the Lord’s hand, so it assures him it will be given forth in the Lord’s time. Whatever you want, go to

God by faith and prayer in the name of Christ, and never think His delays are denials. And be assured that all who spend their days in faith and prayer shall end their days in peace and comfort. J. Mason.

2. Jehovah placed his feet upon a rock and made his steps firm, i.e., delivered him from the danger that surrounded him and gave him firm ground under his feet. The high rock and the firm steps are the opposite of the deep pit and the yielding, miry bottom. This deliverance became to him new matter for thanksgiving. D.—Do but call back your thoughts, you that have indeed escaped it, and look but into that misery whence the hand of the Lord hath drawn you out, and you cannot miss to love Him highly, and still kiss that gracious hand even while it is scourging you with any affliction whatsoever; because it hath once done this for you—namely, plucked you out of destruction. The thoughts of this change will teach us to praise. L.

3. A new song.** Put off oldness; ye know the new song. A new man, a New Testament, a new song. A new song belongeth not to men that are old; none learn that but new men, renewed through grace from oldness, and belonging now to the New Testament, which is the kingdom of heaven. Augustine.—The soul is now entered into rest; rest in love, rest in God. It is flooded also with a wondrously luminous joy; its whole horizon is filled with light; the light of a new love, the light of God revealed within. It has the beginning of true blessedness; because God Himself and the principle of God’s own blessedness are in it. It settles into peace; for now it is at one with God and all the creatures of God. It is filled with the confidence of hope; because God, who is wholly given Himself to a right love, will never forsake it, in life or death. It is free to good, inclined to good; for the good love reigns in it, and it would even have to deny itself not to do the works of love. It consciously knows God within; for God is there now in a new relation, love present to love, love answering to love. There is no alienation, or separation, but oneness. If a man love Me, says the Saviour, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. That abode in the soul is a new condition of Divine movement; for it is in the movement of God. All things, of course, are new. Life proceeds from a new centre, of which God is the rest and prop. The Bible is a new book, because there is a light in the soul by which to read it. Duties are new, because the Divine love the soul is in has changed all the relations of time and the aims of life. The saints of God on earth are no longer shunned, but greeted in new terms of celestial brotherhood. The very world itself is revealed in new beauty and joy to the mind, because it is looked upon with another and different love, and beheld as the symbol of God. Bushnell.

Coming to Christ and conversion to God are materials for a “new song.” A good hope when first given is a new song; and this good hope when renewed, when made more alive and effectual, is a new song. Grand and glorious new songs are in our future. There is the song of victory over death. The first moment after death will put a new song in our mouth, and as certainly—more certainly—our entrance to heaven will do the same. Let us go through life with songs. Let us sing that which God gives us to sing. In plain words, let us acknowledge our obligations to “the Father of all mercies” and the God of all consolation; and let us so acknowledge them as to awaken praise to our God. We are all called to be singers, and we are called to sing new songs. S. Martin.

After deliverance should come a song that will communicate its melody to the life. We can set our daily deeds to the music of a grateful heart, and seek to round our lives into a hymn—the melody of which will be recognized by all who come into contact with us, and the power of which shall not be evanescent, like the voice of the singer, but perennial, like the music of the spheres. Only they who carry this music in their hearts shall sing at last, on the shore of the heavenly land, that song of “pure concert” for which John could find no better description than that it was “the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.” W. M. Taylor.

Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. The terms fear, and hope, or trust David has not improperly joined together, for no man will ever entertain the hope of the favor of God but he whose mind is first imbued with the fear of God. I understand fear to mean the feeling of piety which is produced in us by the knowledge of the power, equity, and mercy of God. Calvin.

4. Happy the man who has made Jehovah his trust.** From his own experience he draws a general conclusion as to the safety and prosperity of those who trust in God. The phrase is properly an exclamation, oh, the happiness of the man, as Ps. 1 : 1 ; 2 : 12 ; 32 : 1 ; 33 : 12. A.

[What trust (the Old Testament word) or faith (the word of the New Testament) is and does, as summarized by old writers : B.]

Faith is the eye, the mouth, the hand, and one of these is of use all day long. Faith is to see, to receive, to work, or to eat; and a Christian should be seeing, or receiving, or working, or feeding, all day long. Bunyan.—Faith is an assimilating grace; it changeth the soul into the image of the object. A deformed person may look on a beautiful object, but not be made beautiful; but faith looking on Christ transforms a man, and turns him into His similitude. Faith looking on a bleeding Christ, causeth a soft, bleeding heart; looking on an holy Christ, causeth sanctity of heart; looking on an humble Christ, makes the soul humble. T. Watson.—Faith reasons not with God, asketh no whats, no hows, no wherefores; it moveth no questions. It yields assent and humbly says Amen to every word of God. Clarke.—Faith is that nail which fastens the soul to Christ; and love is that grace that drives the nail to the head. Faith takes hold of Him and love helps to keep the grip. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, and He burns in the heart by love, like a fire melting the breast. Faith casts the knot, and love draws it fast. Erskine.

5. Much hast Thou accomplished, Jehovah my God, of Thy marvels and thoughts for us ;**

There is nothing to be compared unto Thee, Else would I declare and discourse of them—They are too numerous to be recounted. D.

My God, as well as our God, i.e., in personal covenant with me, as well as in national covenant with Israel. The word translated wonders is properly a passive participle, meaning (things) made wonderful or wonderfully done, and therefore constantly used absolutely as a noun in the sense of wondrous deeds or wonderful works. Thoughts, purposes, and in this connection, purposes of mercy. To us, toward us, respecting us, and for our benefit. A.

There are works of God in His people and for His people. There are His works of creation, of providence, and of redemption, and also His works of grace, wrought in them by His Spirit, and around them by His providence, as well as for them by His Son. These are wonderful works; wonderful in their variety, their tenderness, their adaptation to their need, their co-operation with outward means and their power. They are the result of the Divine thoughts respecting us. They come not by chance, not by men, but by the hand of God, and that hand is moved by His will, and that will by His thought respecting us. Every mercy, even the least, represents some kind thought in the mind of God respecting us. God thinks of each one of His people, and every moment. They are innumerable. “They cannot be reckoned up.” Could we see all the mercies of God to us and His wonderful works wrought for us individually, they would be countless as the sands, and all these countless mercies represent countless thoughts in the mind and heart of God to each one of His people. G. Rogers.

6. He proceeds now to declare the great truth which God had taught him, and which it would seem he had learned in his affliction, that God desires the sacrifice of the will rather than the sacrifice of slain beasts. We may, perhaps, paraphrase vs 5-8 as follows: My heart is full to overflowing with the thought of Thy goodness. How can I express, how can I acknowledge it? Once I should have thought sacrifices and offerings a proper and sufficient acknowledgment. Now I feel how inadequate these are; for Thou hast taught me the truth; my deaf, unwilling ears didst Thou open, that I might understand that a willing heart was the best offering I could render. Then, being thus taught of Thee, I said, Lo, I come, presenting myself before Thee, not with a dead and formal service, but with myself as a living sacrifice. The truth here inculcated is stated fully in Psalm 50, and is often insisted on by the prophets. P.

The connection of the thoughts is quite clear: great and many are the tokens of Thy grace; how am I to thank Thee for them? To this question he first of all gives a negative answer; God has no pleasure in external sacrifices. God, says David, desires not outward sacrifices, but obedience; He hath formed the sense of hearing, hath bestowed upon me the faculty of hearing, and hath therewith given me instruction to be obedient. What is meant is that God has granted him ears in order to hear God’s Word in general and to obey what was heard. It is not sacrifice that God desires, but hearing ears and, therefore, the surrender of the personality itself in willing obedience. D.—Sacrifice is outward and formal, so far as the worshipper is concerned. Obedience is inward and real. The affection of the heart alone gives life to the observance of the form. Without the former, the latter is worthless to the worshipper. This is the uniform tenor of Scripture. M.

In this famous passage David expresses with singular beauty the great truth that all outward observances are valueless without obedience and a full concurrence of the will of man with the will of God. This had ever been recognized by the teachers of Israel, and had but a few years previously been declared by Samuel (see 1 Sam. 15: 22). It is repeated by David (Psalm 51: 16), by Asaph (50: 8-15), and by the prophets (cf., Isa. 1: 11-17; Hos. 6: 6; Micah 6: 6-8). Four kinds of offerings are here named: two represent the conditions of entering into covenant with God—viz., sacrifice, the slaughter of a victim, and oblation, mincha, the fine flour with oil and frankincense presented at the same time on the altar. To these David contrasts the “opening of the ears.” A natural and obvious interpretation is, that God has opened the Psalmist’s ears, or, more accurately, made new ears for him, given him the faculty of receiving and understanding His law. The hearing ear, the legal equivalent to evangelical faith, is the first condition of inner communion with God, and as such presents a perfect antithesis to the outward form which merely represents the condition.

7,8. The typical application to our Lord is obvious and very striking. As David presented himself before God in spirit with the book of the law describing his duties and rights, so the Saviour came with the Word of God bearing witness to Him and expressing that will which He fulfilled. Cook.—The Epistle to the Hebrews (10: 5-10), following the LXX., takes these verses as the language of the Christ upon His coming into the world. When we look at the second half of the Psalm, there cannot be the slightest doubt that it was typological reasons that gave rise to such an interpretation. The language of David, the anointed one—but only such as was used by him after he found himself on the way to the throne—is so moulded by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of prophecy, that it sounds at the same time like the language of the second David, whose self-sacrifice is the end of the animal sacrifices and whose person and work are the kernel and star of the roll of the law, as He passed on through suffering to glory. D.

The purpose of the writer to the Hebrews is not so much to insist on the fact that our Lord’s sacrifice was the sacrifice of a human body—that was already implied in His “coming into the world,” His incarnation—but that it was the offering of an obedient will. It should also further be observed, that the words are not quoted as a prophecy which was fulfilled in Christ, but the writer finds words which once expressed the devotion of a true Israelite to be far more strikingly expressive, indeed, in their highest sense, only truly expressive, of the perfect obedience of the Son of God. All true words of God’s saints of old, all high and holy aspirations, however true and excellent in their mouths, went far beyond themselves, and found their perfect consummation only in Him who was the Perfect Man. P.

The clause before us may be paraphrased as follows: “Since the ceremonies of the Law are worthless, when divorced from habitual obedience, instead of offering mere sacrifice I offer myself, to do whatever is prescribed to me in the written revelation of Thy will.” This is the spirit of every true believer, and is therefore perfectly appropriate to the whole class to whom this Psalm relates, and for whom it was intended. It is peculiarly significant, however, when applied to Christ; first, because He alone possessed this spirit in perfection; secondly, because He sustained a peculiar relation to the rites, and more especially the sacrifices of the Law. David, or any other individual believer under the old economy, was bound to bring himself as an oblation, in completion or in lieu of his external gifts; but such self-devotion was peculiarly important upon Christ’s part, as the real sacrifice, of which those rites were only figures. The failure of any individual to render this essential offering ensured his own destruction. But if Christ had failed to do the same, all His followers must have perished. It is not, therefore, an accommodation of the passage to a subject altogether different, but an exposition of it in its highest application, that is given in Heb. 10: 5-10. The limitation of the words to Christ, as an exclusive Messianic prophecy, has the twofold inconvenience of forbidding its use by the large class of godly sufferers, for whom it seems so admirably suited, and of requiring us to understand even the confession of sins as uttered in His person. A.

That the Psalm was not intended purely as a prophecy of Christ is plain from v. 12, which cannot be attributed to Him. It was written to express David’s grateful and devout feelings, but not his individual feelings alone, those which he had in common with all the truly pious. As such, it could properly be adopted by God’s incarnate Son. David says, it is not the sacrifice of animals that God demands, but the voluntary consecration of the person and hearty surrender to the will of God. Such surrender found its first perfect embodiment in Christ; His, therefore, according to the doctrine of David, is the true and only perfect sacrifice. David, indeed, is here speaking of but one aspect of sacrifice, as symbolizing a grateful return to God for His benefits. But sacrifice, as the Scriptures abundantly teach, has also another aspect, that of expiation for sin. Now if Christ’s sacrifice, tested by the principle which David here lays down, is the only perfect sacrifice, then the further conclusion follows that it is the one only complete expiation, beside which animal offerings are worthless, and by which they are necessarily superseded. The use made of this passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews is, therefore, entirely legitimate; while the conclusion drawn is not one which was in the Psalmist’s mind in penning the passage, it nevertheless is involved in the declaration which he makes. W. H. G.

7. Emphatic and important are the words: “Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of Me.” The Messiah was long known under the name “the coming One,” “He that should come”—phrases which have their germ in this and kindred prophecies. “In the volume of the book,” i.e., in the Pentateuch (no other book then extant bore this title) it was written: “The sceptre shall not pass from Judah until Shiloh come” (Gen. 49: 10). So here it is written concerning Me, i.e., that I am to come, and devote myself to doing the perfect will of God, even though at the cost of untold sufferings. C.

Lo, I come. As His name is above every name, so this coming of His is above every coming. We sometimes call our own births a coming into the world; but properly, none ever came into the world but He. He only truly can be said to come, who is before He comes; so were not we, only He so. He only properly comes who comes from some place or other. Alas! we had none to come from but the womb of nothing. He only had a place to be in before He came. Mark Frank.

This looks back to the primitive transaction and purpose, Lo, I come to do Thy will, says the Son; and, Behold My Servant whom I have chosen (Isa. 43: 10), says the Father; in this masterpiece of My work none in heaven or earth is fit to serve Me but Mine own Son. And as He came into the world according to that decree and will, so He goes out of it again in that way; the Son of man goeth as is determined, it was wickedly and maliciously done by men against Him, but determined (which is that He there speaks of) wisely and graciously by His Father with His own consent. L.—Christ was never so joyful in all His life, that we read of, as when His sufferings grew near; then He takes the sacrament of His body and blood into His own hands, and with thanksgiving bestows it among His disciples; then He sings a hymn, then He rejoices, then He comes with a “Lo, I come.” Oh, the heart, the great heart that Jesus had for us to do us good! He did it with all the desire of His soul. Bunyan.

Christ said, “The cross is in My path, and on it and from it I exercise the influence, to exercise which I have come into the world, and there I do the thing which I came forth from the Father to do.” He thought of His death not as the end of His work, but as the centre-point of it; not as the termination of His activity, but as its climax, to which all the rest was subordinated, and without which all the rest was nought. He does not die, and so seal a faithful life by an heroic death—but dies, so bearing and bearing away man’s sin. He regarded from the beginning “the glory that should follow,” and the suffering through which He had to wade to reach it, in one and the same act of prescience, and said, “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of Me.” If we carried with us more distinctly than we do that one simple thought, that in all the human joys, in all the apparently self-forgetting tenderness of that Lord who had a heart for every sorrow and an ear for every complaint, and a hand open as day and full of melting charity for every need—that in every moment of that life, in the boyhood, in the dawning manhood, in the maturity of His growing human power—there was always present one black shadow, toward which He ever went straight with the consent of His will and the clearest eye, we should understand something more of how the life as well as the death was a sacrifice for us sinful men! A. M.

The words carry with them another truth: Wherever there is difficulty, wherever there is sin, or sorrow, or need, in proportion as the difficulty, sin, sorrow, need, become extreme, there Jesus comes. It is not one, but a long series of advents, Jesus coming nearer to us and we, as we are drawn, coming a little nearer to Him, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. It is so the work is done, and it is so that the union becomes established between a sinner and Christ, that union which can never be broken forever and forever. J. V.—A man is not saved because he is better than other men, but because he is in Christ and Christ is in him. He who is lost is not lost because he is worse than other men, but because he is not in Christ and Christ is not in him. Christ’s obedience unto death imputed to us by God and received by faith—this is the way, and the only way, to holiness and heaven. David Winters.

All the work of our redemption was in a manner achieved when our Saviour did appear; His incarnation was the great step toward it; as being an act of the humblest obedience and of the highest merit that could anywise be performed, for satisfying the justice of God, and winning His favor toward us; His taking up life may well seem more meritorious than His laying it down, and the chief passion which He could ever undergo. His death was a passion, great as death could be; His life also was a continual passion, or exercise of huge patience; but His birth seemeth to be the greatest and strangest passion of all, involving the lowest submission and the deepest suffering. What nobler sacrifice could there be than God’s offering Himself up to mortality, to infirmity, to slavery? What obedience can be thought of comparable to that which He did express when He said, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. I came down, not that I might do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me?” Barrow.

The volume of the book, or the roll of Scripture. The second noun is the one used in Hebrew to denote the written revelation of God’s will, and the first to describe the form of an ancient Oriental book, not unlike that of a modern map, and still retained in the manuscripts used in the synagogue worship. The reference here is to the Law of Moses. A.

8. I delight to do Thy will, O my God. The will of God to redeem sinners by the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ was most grateful and pleasing to the very heart of Christ. It is said (Prov. 8:31) when He was solacing Himself in the sweetest enjoyment of His Father, while He lay in that blessed bosom of delights, yet the very prospect of this work gave Him pleasure, then His “delights were with the sons of men.” And when He was come into the world, and had endured many abuses and injuries, and was even now come to the most difficult part of the work; yet, “how am I straitened, or pained (saith He), till it be accomplished!” Flavel.

The Divine will was very dear to Jesus from its connection with the work and the reward of redemption. Mark here the bearing of an unselfish end on an unselfish rule of life. The purpose for which Christ lived and died was unselfish—to bless others with eternal life; and the fondness with which He cherished this unselfish end exalted the unselfish rule. Living in the joy of the coming blessedness of His people, He could serenely and contentedly bow to that will by which their glory was secured.

W. G. B.—The one undeviating object of the Son all through was the glory of the Father; He came to do His will, and He fulfilled it with all the unvarying intensity of the most heavenly affection. What, then, will not be the exuberant joy of His heart, when in His glorious kingdom He shall see the Father beyond all measure glorified? Goodhart.

This, then, is the secret of the choice of life, to learn what, among the manifold duties of His great household, God, in the eternal purpose of His love, willed each one of us to discharge. To have discovered this and to have placed ourselves in that path, conforming ourselves therein to the will of God, is to have taken, by God’s grace a decisive step in the way of salvation. For it is to have chosen the will of God and united our own to His; it is to answer the purpose of God for us; it is to be under the guidance of the All-wise, the protection of the Almighty. Pasey.

9,10. But not obedience only, but thanksgiving also shall form a part of his grateful acknowledgment of God’s goodness; he will both do the will and speak the praises of Jehovah. This last, too, is better than sacrifice. Words are here heaped upon words to express the eager forwardness of a heart burning to show its gratitude. No elaborate description could so well have given us the likeness of one whose “life was a thanksgiving.” P.

The Gospel of Jehovah’s justifying and gracious rule he has published to the whole of Israel; and he can appeal to the omniscient One, that neither from fear of man nor from shame and indolence has he restrained his lips from confessing Him. This rich material for evangelical preaching in the history of redemption he has not allowed to slumber like a dead, unfruitful knowledge deep down and hidden in his heart. The new song, which Jehovah put into his mouth, he has also really sung. He is, therefore, without fear for the future. D.

9. “Preached righteousness,” the Hebrew word being the most perfect equivalent which the language affords for evangelizing, i.e., preaching the glad tidings of Gospel salvation. It is used repeatedly in this sense by Isaiah (40: 9 and 52: 7). The expressions, “In the great congregation;” “not concealed from the great congregation,” take their form from the times of David, when the great congregation of all Israel convened at the one place for worship; but in sense it purports that Christ proclaimed this Gospel to the Israel of His time and through them to the wide world. Having made propitiation for sin by His death, He proproclaimed for all the race free pardon and God’s righteousness in forgiving sin. These verses make this idea very emphatic. C.

10. He emphatically repeats that he had not hidden his gratitude to God and his sense of the Divine goodness in his own breast, but had freely published it to others, not from ostentation, but from an impulse of love and obligation which could not be repressed. He who believes in his heart should make confession with his lips (Rom. 10: 10). W. H. G.

A true inward experience or discovery of God in the heart is itself an impulse also of self-manifestation, as all love and gratitude are—wants to speak and declare itself, and will as naturally do it when it is born as a child will utter its first cry. David speaks as one who could not find how to suppress the joy that filled his heart, but must needs break loose in a testimony for God. And so it is in all cases the instinct of a new heart, in its experience of God, to acknowledge Him. The change implied in a true Christian experience or the revelation of God in the heart is in its very nature the soul and root of an outward change that is correspondent. The faith implanted is a faith that works in appropriate demonstrations, and must as certainly work as a living heart must beat or pulsate. It is the righteousness of God revealed within to be henceforth the actuating spring and power of a righteous and devoted life. It will inform the whole man. It will glow in the countenance. It will irradiate the eye. It will speak from the tongue. It will enter into all the transactions of business, the domestic tempers, the social manifestations and offices. It will make the man a benefactor and call him into self-sacrifice for God and the truth. It will send him forth to be God’s advocate with men, and require him to make full testimony, either formally or by implication, of what God has done for him. Of this a true Christian experience is the root and beginning, else it is nothing. The inward change is no reality, but a pure fiction, if it does not issue in this. In this it will issue when it is allowed to act unrestrainedly, even though it be at first the smallest seed of grace possible. There will be times, more or less private, when the humblest and weakest disciples can speak of what God has done for them, with the very best effect. Nor is there anything so unpractical and destitute of Christian respect as the shyness of some fastidious people in this matter. It never exists in a truly manly character or in connection with a full-toned, living godliness. That will be no such dainty affair. It will speak out.

It will declare what God has done, and show the method by which He works. The new joy felt will be a new song in the mouth, and every new deliverance will be fitly, gratefully confessed. There will be no shallow affectation of delicacy shutting the lips and sealing them in a forced dumbness, as if the righteousness of God had been taken by a deed of larceny. How often will two disciples help and strengthen each other by showing, each the other, in what way God has led him, what his struggles have been, and where his victories. They spake often, one to another, says the prophet, and God hearkened and heard it. God listens for nothing so tenderly as when His children help each other by their testimonies to His goodness and the way in which He has brought them deliverance. Besides there is a higher view of these personal testimonies and confessions. All these experiences or life-histories of the faithful will be among the grandest studies and most glorious revelations of the future—a spiritual epic of wars, and defeats, and falls, and victories, and wondrous turns of deliverance, and unseen ministries of God and angels, that, when they are opened to the saints, will furnish the sublimest of all their discoveries of Christ and of God. Bushnell.

The open, active profession of Christ, the manifestation of faith and love in temper, word, and deed is not an optional duty. Nature, as certainly as it ordains that light shall shine, ordains that gratitude shall give thanks and praise, that love and faith and hope shall show themselves by labor and sacrifice, by patience in well-doing. Truthfulness, fidelity, manliness, all demand that if a man loves Christ he will take part with Christ, as one that loves his country or his friends will espouse the cause of country or friends. Sincerity, loyalty, benevolence, demand that if a man desires the participation of others in the salvation to whose hope he has attained, he shall put forth every exertion and use every influence by which this object may be achieved. And the Christian’s own spiritual life, his growth in grace and sanctification, his happiness here and hereafter, all strongly enforce the duty of open, active profession by word and deed as absolutely indispensable and imperative. B.

11. With this verse begins the second part of the Psalm, which runs altogether in a different strain; reflecting on his deep sinfulness, the Psalmist is full of grief, and expresses his feelings in earnest prayers, sad confessions, imprecations against his enemies, and longings for deliverance. Cook.

12. My iniquities.** This verse is quite decisive as to the question which has been raised respecting the Messianic interpretation of the Psalm. It is quite impossible to refer such words as these to Christ; and when expositors choose to say that “my iniquities” mean “the iniquities laid upon me,” they are doing violence, most unjustifiably, to the plain words of the text. P.

They are more than the hairs of mine head. We lose ourselves when we speak of the sins of our lives. It may astonish any considering man to take notice how many sins he is guilty of any one day; how many sins accompany any one single act; nay, how many bewry themselves in any one religious duty. Whensoever ye do anything forbidden, you omit the duty at that time commanded; and whenever you neglect that which is enjoined, the omission is joined with the acting of something forbidden; so that the sin, whether omission or commission, is always double; nay, the apostle makes every sin tenfold (Jas. 2 : 10). D. Clarkson.

If any one, trying to make higher attainments and achieve some higher standing in religion, is overwhelmed with the infirmity and bitter evil of his own heart, and cries, My iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; what is there in such a discovery to break down his confidence? Just there is the place for him to believe and begin to sing with Paul, I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord. The very first thing to be held by a true Christian is that he has no inherent sufficiency for anything; and then upon that he should place as the universal antidote to discouragement, the great principle of accruing grace, sealed by the promise, My grace is sufficient for thee. Bushnell.

16. Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee.** As every mercy to every believer giveth a proof of God’s readiness to show the like mercy to all believers when they stand in need, so should every mercy shown to any of the number, being known to the rest, be made the matter and occasion of magnifying the Lord. Dickson.—Love thy salvation. If we love with all our hearts His great salvation, let us proclaim the glory of God which is resplendent therein. Never let His praises cease. As the heart is warm with gladness, let it incite the tongue to perpetual praise. If we cannot do what we would for the spread of the kingdom, at least let us desire and pray for it. S.—The more that we limit the essentials of life, and find the

springs of our pleasure in the nearest and simplest things, the more shall we open again that fountain of gladness which seems to have dried up in the midst of our desert of life. Being cumbered about many things is fatal to gladness. It distracts us, it draws us two ways. Gladness lies very much in oneness. “One thing I do,” must be the word of the men who would reopen the spring of the ancient hilaritas in our modern world. It was the word of the man who was “always rejoicing;” who wrote to his converts, “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice.” The springs of gladness are within every healthy nature, and will flow, if the stone of care is not laid on them too heavily. The resolution to live simply, to cut off superfluities, to unmask falsities, to establish honesties, and to maintain them resolutely at all costs, is like rolling away the stone that seals the fountain; it will bubble forth pure draughts of joy. Another spring of gladness is wholesome, noble work. No man is glad when living to himself. Man is made for the life of communion; the perfect form of human life was the life which found its blessedness in giving itself to mankind. Anon.