Psalms 54
ButlerHaving chosen this, it is easy to recall the past most vividly and to describe it as an eyewitness of events in their succession. David had a large store of such material, accumulated during the hard experiences of his early manhood, and giving profitable employment to his serene old age. De Witt.
FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; ON STRINGED INSTRUMENTS. MASCHIL OF DAVID: WHEN THE ZIPHITES CAME AND SAID TO SAUL, DOTH NOT DAVID HIDE HIMSELF WITH US?
1. SAVE me, O God, by thy name, And judge me in thy might. 2 Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth. 3 For strangers are risen up against me, And violent men have sought after my soul: They have not set God before them. [Selah 4 Behold, God is mine helper: The Lord is of them that uphold my soul.
5. He shall requite the evil unto mine enemies: Destroy thou them in thy truth. 6 With a freewill offering will I sacrifice unto thee: I will give thanks unto thy name, O LORD, for it is good. 7 For he hath delivered me out of all trouble; And mine eye hath seen my desire upon mine enemies.
THE language of this Psalm is of so general a character that it might have been composed under almost any circumstances of peril. The Psalm consists of two principal divisions: A prayer to God to hear and to judge the cause of His servant, together with the reason for this prayer in the violence and unscrupulousness of the enemies who beset him (v. 1-3). The confident assurance that God will hear his prayer, and the promise and vow of thanksgiving for God’s goodness which is thus anticipated (v. 4-7). P—Two notes only sound from his harp: One a plaintive cry for help; the other thanksgiving for deliverance as already achieved. The two are bound together by the recurrence in each of “the name” of God, which is at once the source of his salvation and the theme of his praise. We have only to read the lowly petitions to feel that they speak of a spirit somewhat weighed down by danger, and relaxed from the loftier mood of triumphant trust. A. M.
TITLE. For the musician, with accompaniment of stringed instruments, a meditation, by David, when the Ziphites had come and said to Saul:
Doth not David hide himself with us? Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, had escaped to David, who was then in the fortified city of Keilah with 600 men, but received information from God through Abiathar that when Saul should invest the city the inhabitants would deliver him up. We meet him next in the wilderness of Ziph; the Ziphites betray him and pledge themselves to capture him, so that he is brought into the greatest straits, from which he was delivered only by an inroad of the Philistines, which compelled Saul to return from his pursuit of him (1 Sam. 23: 19). D.
1. Save me, O God! As David was at this time placed beyond the reach of human assistance, he must be understood as praying to be saved by the name and the power of God, in an emphatical sense, or by these in contradistinction to the usual means of deliverance. Though all help must ultimately come from God, there are ordinary methods by which He generally extends it. When these fail, and every earthly stay is removed, He must then take the work into His own hands. It was in such a situation that David here fled to the saints’ last asylum, and sought to be saved by a miracle of Divine power. John Calvin.
3. Not to set God before them is to act as if they did not remember or believe in His existence and His presence. The Selah indicates a pause of indignation and abhorrence. A.—They have not set God before them; they have quite cast off the thoughts of God; they do not consider that His eye is upon them, that, in fighting against His people they fight against Him, nor have they any dread of the certain fatal consequences of such an unequal engagement. What bonds of nature, or friendship, or gratitude, or covenant will hold those that have broken through the fear of God? Selah; Mark this! H.
When the hand is full and the purse is full, and the heart has all it can wish, there is danger lest men should forget God. “Soul, take thine ease,” is a very common feeling among those whose circumstances are, on the whole, fairly pleasant. They have no desire to see God, no desire to be with God. Let them be without changes, and they do not feel that God is essential to them at all, and they do not fear Him. All the changes of this life which unsettle us, derange our schemes, and destroy our pleasures are meant to appeal to us and to remind us that “here we have no continuing city”—that this is not our rest. E. Mellor.
4. The upholder of my soul—literally, “among them,” or, “with them that uphold my soul.” But this would not convey the meaning of the Psalmist. For God is not to him one out of many helpers, but the only true Helper. The use of the plural denotes the class or category of upholders in which God is, though, of course, without placing Him on a level with human helpers. (See the same grammatical figure in 118 : 7; Judges 11 : 35.)
5. With free will, or, with glad, willing heart, as the expression occurs in Num. 15 : 3. This explains the motive of the sacrifice. The offering would be a literal offering, as appointed by the law, but brought with the cheerfulness of a thankful heart. P.
There are many of us whose question seems to be, “How little can I get off with! How much can I retain?"—many of us whose effort is to find out how much of the world is consistent with the profession of Christianity, and to find the minimum of effort, of love, of service, of gifts which may free us from the obligation. And what does that mean? It means that we are slaves. It means that if we durst we would give nothing and do nothing. And what does that mean? It means that we do not care for the Lord, and have no joy in our work. And what does that mean? It means that our work deserves no praise, and will get no reward. If we love Christ we shall be anxious, if it were possible, to do more than He commands us, in token of our loyalty to the King, and of our delight in the service. Of course, in the highest view, nothing can be more than necessary. Of course He has the right to all our work; but yet there are heights of Christian consecration and self-sacrifice which a man will not be blamed if he has not climbed, and will be praised if he has. What we want, if I might venture to say so, is extravagances of service. Judas may say, “To what purpose is this waste?” but Jesus will say, “He hath wrought a good work on Me.” And the fragrance of the ointment will smell sweet through the centuries. A. M.
Many Christians, obedient to the call to “draw nigh unto God,” are prone to cultivate too exclusively the inner graces. The beginning and ending of their prayers is, “Lord, increase our faith.” But only the hemisphere of the Christian life has been traversed when one has experienced the delights of communion with his God. It is when the outward fruits of the spirit begin to cluster and drop by the wayside that the religious life begins to become joyful not only to its possessor, but to all within its radius. Among God’s gifts faith has undisputed primacy. But the command is to “add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity.” Our experimental religion is best proved when it lives in the experience of those with whom we deal. Interior.
6,7. Thanks to Thy name, for it is good.** The name—the revealed character of God—was the storehouse of all the saving energies to which he appealed in v. 1. It is the theme of his praise when the deliverance shall have come. It is almost regarded here as equivalent to the Divine personality—it is good, it has delivered him. Thus, we may say that this brief Psalm gives us as the single thought of a devout soul in trouble, the name of the Lord, and teaches by its simple pathos how the contemplation of God as He has made Himself known, should underlie every cry for help and crown every thanksgiving; whilst it may assure us that whosoever seeks for the salvation of that mighty name may, even in the midst of trouble, rejoice as in an accomplished deliverance. And all such thoughts should be held with a faith at
least as firm as the ancient Psalmist’s, by us to whom the “name” of the Lord is “declared” by Him who is the full revelation of God, and the storehouse of all blessings and help to His “brethren.” A. M.