Psalms 55

The petitions are such as David might well have made after his conversation with Jonathan. The Psalm is evidently the song of one whose hand had been “strengthened in God.” Its great central truth is, “God is mine Helper; the Lord is with them who (like Jonathan) uphold my soul.” And there comes after that a happy exercise of the spirit of trust, enabling the Psalmist to say, “He hath delivered me out of all trouble.” This result is wonderful and beautiful. How remarkable that in that wilderness of Judah, amid a life of hardship, exposure, and peril, with a powerful king thirsting for his blood, and using his every device to get hold of him, he should be able to say of God, “He hath delivered me out of all trouble.” It is the faith that removes mountains; it is the faith that worked so wonderfully when the lad with the sling and stones went out so bravely against the giant. What wonders cannot faith perform when it gets clear of all the entanglements of carnal feeling, and stands, firm and erect, on the promise of God! How infinitely would such a faith relieve and sustain us in the common troubles and anxieties of life, and in deeper perplexities connected with the cause of God. Take this short clause as marking out the true quality and highest attainment of simple faith, and resolve that you will not rest in your own endeavors till your mind reaches the state of tranquillity which it describes so simply—“He hath delivered me out of all trouble.” W. G. B.

1. GIVE ear to my prayer, O God; And hide not thyself from my supplication. 2 Attend unto me, and answer me: I am restless in my complaint, and moan; 3 Because of the voice of the enemy, Because of the oppression of the wicked; For they cast iniquity upon me, And in anger they persecute me. 4 My heart is sore pained within me: And the terrors of death are fallen upon me. 5 Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, And horror hath overwhelmed me. 6 And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest. 7 Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. [Selah 8 I would haste me to a shelter From the stormy wind and tempest. 9 Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongue: For I have seen violence and strife in the city. 10 Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: Iniquity also and mischief are in the midst of it. 11 Wickedness is in the midst thereof: Oppression and guile depart not from her streets. 12 For it was not an enemy that reproached me; Then I could have borne it: Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; Then I would have hid myself from him: 13 But it was thou, a man mine equal, My companion, and my familiar friend. 14 We took sweet counsel together, We walked in the house of God with the throng. 15 Let death come suddenly upon them, Let them go down alive into the pit: For wickedness is in their dwelling, in the midst of them. 16 As for me, I will call upon God; And the LORD shall save me. 17 Evening, and morning, and at noonday, will I complain, and moan:

And he shall hear my voice. 18 He hath redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me : For they were many that strove with me. 19 God shall hear, and answer them, Even he that abideth of old, [Selah The men who have no changes, And who fear not God. 20 He hath put forth his hands against such as were at peace with him : He hath profaned his covenant. 21 His mouth was smooth as butter,

But his heart was war : His words were softer than oil, Yet were they drawn swords. 22 Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee : He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. 23 But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction : Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days ; But I will trust in thee.

A COUNTERPART to Psalm 41, which refers to the same intrigue and hatred of enemies, and to the same treacherous friend. It belongs to the time just before David’s dethronement by the partisans of Absalom under the crafty lead of Ahithophel. The latter is the person whose faithlessness is complained of, and he is well called “the Old Testament Judas.” (See 2 Sam 15.) De Witt.

As this Psalm is in the title ascribed to David, and as it contains a bitter complaint of the faith- lessness of a trusted friend, it has been com- monly supposed to refer to the desertion and treachery of Ahithophel in Absalom’s rebellion. One thing is certain, and that is, that whoever the hollow friend may have been, who knew so well to cloak his treacherous designs—who with war in his heart could use words smoother than oil—his perfidy was very deeply felt and very bitterly resented by the man who here records it. At one moment sadness, at another indignation prevails. The abruptness in many parts of the Psalm is to be accounted for, to a great extent, by the strong emotion under which it was written.

The Psalm consists of three principal divi- sions : The first contains the earnest appeal to God against his enemies, the expression of his suffering, and the horror of mind which has come upon him, together with the longing to es- cape from the hostility to which he was exposed, and the evil he was compelled to witness (vs. 1-8). In the next his tone changes. The por- tentous wickedness which has filled the whole city, and worse even than this, the perfidy of the man he had trusted, rouse his indignation, and he prays that all the counsels of the wicked may be brought to naught, and that they them- selves may go down alive into the grave (vs. 9-15). The last strophe is altogether in a calmer strain. It opens and closes with the confes- sion of trust in God ; and though the figure of the traitor again comes prominently into view, it does not provoke the same burning impreca- tion as before. Instead of this, the Psalmist rests calmly confident that the righteous shall never be moved, and that the bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall speedily be cut off (vs. 16-23). P.

TITLE. To the Chief Musician. With (or on) stringed instruments. A didactic Psalm. By David. The Psalm is designated as a Maschil, because it might at first sight seem to have re- lation merely to a case of personal maltreatment and distress, whereas it is a general description of the sufferings of God’s people, or the right- cous as a class, at the hands of false friends and malignant enemies. Although there seem to be allusions to the writer’s own experience, in the times both of Saul and Absalom, the whole de- scription can be applied exclusively to neither. A.

6. Don’t spend your time in wishing for wings, or for anything else that is impossible. Not that there is anything wrong in a wish, unless that we wish for what is wrong. Wishes will come flying into our minds, as little birds sometimes hop in at an open window. But do not feed and fondle them. Let them fly away again. Wishing is profitless work, even for possible things. God gave David something much better than wings. Read vs. 16, 17, 22, and look at the last six words of v. 23, and you will see how this was. Often God denies our wishes that He may give us something better than we ask or think. The Lord Jesus needed no wings to fly up to heaven. And we need no wings to get near enough to Him to talk to Him. Ask Him to help you to use your hands and feet in His service. Love to Him will be better than the winged shoes you read of in the old Greek fables. It will make your feet swift and your hands nimble for every duty and every kindness. E. R. Conder.

To sigh is sometimes natural, but to waste time in sighing, to suffer ourselves to be absorbed in the dark side of life, to exclude ourselves from its many and estimable gladnesses, is unthoughtful and useless. No good and great life will ever suffer itself to be crippled by conquerable melancholy. If we sigh for our own weakness and sins, we cannot, indeed, fly to ourselves, but we can fly to the grace of God and amend ourselves. If we sigh for our surroundings, no wings of a dove, indeed, can bear us away from the dwellings of Meshach and the tents of Kedar; but, by God’s grace, we may help to make them better and happier places; for, after all, at all times of our pilgrimage, primary duties

“Shine aloft like stars,

And charities, that soothe and heal and bless, Lie scattered at the feet of men like flowers.”

Sorrow may take from life its delights, but it can never take its duties. At the lowest ebb of dejection we still have much to do. That was a good motto, “Work here, rest elsewhere, cease thy sighing, do thy work, the day is short, the work abundant, the laborers few, the reward is great.” Farrar.

7. To lodge is here to take up one’s abode. The wilderness, not necessarily a barren desert but an uninhabited region, the essential idea here being that of separation from human society, a strong though indirect mode of affirming its extreme corruption. The strength of the feeling which prompted this desire is indicated by a solemn pause. A.

9. The tone of sadness and melancholy now gives way to one of hot and passionate indignation. He would have escaped if he could from that city of sinners, who vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their ungodly deeds; but as he could not do this, he would gladly see God’s judgments executed upon them. The sudden outburst of these fervent, impetuous feelings gives an irregularity to the whole poem. But this is natural.

14. The first clause speaks of private intimacy, the next of association in public acts, and especially in the great festivals and processions to the Temple.

15. Again, indignation at the blackness of this treachery, so far worse to be endured than any open enmity. To have trusted, and to find his trust betrayed; to have been one with a man in public and in private, bound to him by personal ties and by the ties of religion, and then to find honor, faith, and affection all cast to the winds—this it was that seemed so terrible; this it was that called for the withering curse. Thus the second strophe ends as it began (v. 9), with imprecations upon the wicked; the intervening stanzas, in describing the faithlessness of the trusted friend, giving the reason for this anathema. P.

15. Desolations (are) upon them! They shall go down to Sheol alive? For evils are in their dwellings, in their heart. All that the Hebrew words express is a confident anticipation. The common version of the first words (let death seize upon them) is founded on the masoretic reading; but the best critics now prefer the older reading in the text, which, instead of a verb and a singular noun, exhibits one noun in the plural number, meaning desolations, and agreeing with the substantive verb understood. Sheol, the grave, the state of the dead, the wide old English sense of hell. There is an obvious allusion to another great historical type of God’s contributory judgments, the destruction of Korah and his company, who went down alive into the pit (Num. 16: 33). A.—There is justice in the universe, love itself demands it; pity to rebels against God, as such, is no virtue—we pray for them as creatures, we abhor them as enemies of God. We need in these days far more to guard against the disguised iniquity which sympathizes with evil, and counts punishment to be cruelty, than against the harshness of a former age. S.

16,17. Another change of tone, now sweet and solemn, with the name Jehovah, for the first time in the Psalm, speaking of inward hope and sure salvation. There may possibly be an allusion to prayers habitually offered thrice daily, but the Psalmist is speaking now of his unceasing supplication in the time of trial. Cook.—“As for me” well indicates the strong contrast which David designedly puts between his case and that of his enemies. They, prayerless and awfully wicked, go down suddenly and fearfully to their own place; but I cry to my God for help, and in Him I find precious salvation. This allusion to David’s stated times for prayer is interesting as showing that he lived in the atmosphere of prayer, waiting continually upon his God at all times, and preeminently in all his straits. C.

This is the excellent advantage of the prayer of faith, that it quiets and establishes the heart in God. Whatever be his estate and desire, when once the believer hath put his petition in God’s hand, he rests content in holy security and assurance concerning the answer, refers it to the love and wisdom of God how and when He will answer; not doubting that whatsoever it be, and whensoever, it shall both be gracious and seasonable. Leighton.—A father encourages his child to make known his wishes, and lets him know that they will be attended to. This does not imply that every one of the petitions will be granted, even those that are capricious, or which the father knows might injure his boy. He complies with the entreaties, so far as this can be done consistently with the wise regulations of his household, so far as circumstances admit, and so far as the youth’s best welfare is not interfered with. It is much the same with our heavenly Father when we are assured that ‘if men who are evil know how to give good things to their children, much more shall our heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him.’ The two cases, indeed, that our heavenly and that of our earthly father, are not identical, but they are parallel, and the earthly may throw light on the heavenly. God, in His sovereign wisdom and for our good, has laid down governmental laws, and these He cannot be expected to contravene; and much as He may yearn to grant the requests of those who pray, yet He will not do so when this might injure their best interests; He will not, for instance, give them wealth when this might make them vain and proud, or tempt them into sinful indulgences. McCosh.

You may confidently take up David’s conclusion—‘The Lord shall save me.’ Is not this too bold? Yes, if founded upon anything in yourself as the cause why God should save you, it is daring presumption; but from the Lord’s absolute declarations, full and free promises given us in Christ, we are divinely warranted thus to conclude. Then take and prize the Lord’s word as your blessed charter of salvation; plead before Him; expect all salvation from Him, even victory over all sin, deliverance from every trouble, the comfort of holiness here, and the joys of glory in eternity—‘All are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ W. Mason.

17. Evening and morning.** The three principal parts of the day are mentioned, either as marking special times set apart for prayer, or as a poetical expression for ’the whole day,’ ‘at all times,’ ‘without ceasing.’ P.—It is as impossible for the soul to live and thrive without daily prayer, as for the body to live and thrive without daily food. Our graces are like plants that need daily watering; lamps that need daily filling; bodies that need daily feeding. It is as necessary for the graces of the inner, as for the strength, and health, and life of the outward man that we should wait on God to say, ‘Give me day by day my daily bread.’ Guthrie.

Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man’s prayer. It must be an intent, zealous, busy, operative prayer. For, consider what a huge indecency it is, that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not. Our prayers upbraid our spirits, when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which are more precious than imperial seeptres, richer than the spoils of the sea, or the treasures of the Indian hills. Bishop J. Taylor.—It is frequent converse with God which begetteth a particular acquaintance with Him, a migdful regard of Him, a hearty liking to Him, a delightful taste of His goodness, and consequently a sincere and solid good-will toward Him; but intermission thereof produceth estrangement or enmity toward Him. If we seldom come at God, we shall little know Him, not much care for Him, scarce remember Him, rest insensible of His love and regardless of His favor; a coldness, a shyness, a distaste, an antipathy toward Him will by degrees creep upon us. Abstinence from His company and presence will cast us into conversations destructive or prejudicial to our friendship with Him. Barrow.

As we are creatures of impulse, inspiration, liberty, so also we are creatures of drill, and there is no way to perfect or establish us in anything unless we could be required to do what we are not inclined to do; to appoint our times of prayer, keep ourselves in rounds of observance, and hold fast in the punctual discipline of times. If we have no times in religion but such as we take by mere impulse or inclination, we shall fall away at last from all times and all duties. Let any one take the ground, for example, that he will never pray except when he is drawn to it, and he will less and less frequently be drawn. If any one tells me that he cannot pray when he is disinclined or not moved to it, and would feel it even to be an act of insincerity, I understand that he prays very seldom, and perhaps never. Such a rule of prayer would gradually let down the best Christian, and finally take him quite away from the exercise. If instead of girding himself to what interest he may find, he yields to his mere self-indulgence, that self-indulgence will rot away his confidence, exterminate his peace, turn itself into habitual disinclination, and so, by a fixed law, put an end to his praying altogether. Let any most dull and worldly minded Christian gather himself up to the established rule of prayer for three times, twice, or even once a day, determined not to have it as a mere observance, but as an exercise of grace and practical waiting on God, and it will not be long before he is truly restored and walks in liberty. So that if we grant the inherent defect of any and all prayers in which there is nothing better than a forced exercise, no impulse, no liberty, the true way to be in liberty, and be kept habitually there, is to live in that holy routine which is the bond of all true application, and the certain method of all earnestness and fidelity. And accordingly it will be found, as a matter of fact, that they who are readiest to endure hardness, and have least delicacy about forcing themselves in constrained exercises, have really most liberty, live closest to God, enjoy most of His smile, and as they keep up the rounds of duty most faithfully, will have really least feeling of constraint, or even think of it as no constraint at all. Bushnell.

And He shall hear my voice. He is confident that he will prevail; he makes no question that he would be heard; he speaks as if already he were answered. When our window is opened toward heaven, the windows of heaven are open to us. Have but a pleading heart, and God will have a plenteous hand. S.

18. The battle against me.** Many a great battle turns at last on the reserve. Life’s battles and crises are determined in like manner, ofttimes, by the reserve or the absence of reserve. We must all be assailed by temptations and by spiritual foes, when victory can be gained only if we have reserves of resistance to call into action. We must all stand before tasks and duties which will altogether baffle our ability if we have no more strength to draw on than we have been using in the common duties of the common days. Blessed are they who have learned to draw on the infinite resources of Divine strength; with the fulness of God as reserve they can never fail. J. R. M.

19. God will hear and answer them, and (He) inhabiting antiquity (will hear and answer those) to whom there are no changes, and (who) fear not God.** As He has heard me in mercy, so will He hear them in wrath. As He has answered my prayer in the way described above (v. 18), so will He answer them in the way described below (v. 23). In this case, what is heard and answered is not prayer, but the voice of the enemy (v. 3), and his malignant slanders (v. 12). Inhabiting antiquity, or as the English Bible phrases it, he that abideth of old. The first Hebrew verb, however, could not fail to suggest it primary meaning, which is to sit, and more especially to sit enthroned, as a sovereign and a judge. A.—God will hear and answer them—i.e., as their wicked prayer deserves. “He that abideth of old” is not merely He who liveth of old, but He who sits enthroned of old, from everlasting, the Eternal King. “Selah;” think of this: He who has reigned through all the ages of the eternal Past, will not He subdue the wicked beneath His feet? Then, continuing the construction without pause, we may translate: “God will hear and answer them to whom there are no changes and who fear not God.” The word for “changes” might possibly refer to inward, moral changes; but its current usage as well as the logic of this passage strongly favor its reference to physical changes of condition—e.g., calamities, reverses. God will hear and answer (in righteous justice) those who, long prosperous, have been hardened in iniquity, past all wholesome fear of His name. C.

Because they have no changes, no afflictions, no interruption to the constant course of their prosperity, no crosses to empty them from vessel to vessel, therefore they fear not God, they live in a constant neglect and contempt of God and religion, which is the cause of all their other wickedness, and by which they are certainly marked for destruction. H.—Their prosperity keeps a settled course, and because they find all things going on in the old course of Providence, therefore they go on in their old course of sinfulness, “they fear not God;” intimating that as such changes always should, so usually they do, awaken fear; and that, if the Lord would but change, and toss, and tumble them about, by various troublesome dispensations, surely they would fear him. Caryl.

To you who prosper in everything, and are agitated by no kind of adversity, no word of God is more pointedly serious than this. The danger is that, disturbed by no crosses, unsettled by no changes, you will finally become so fast-rooted in pride and forgetfulness of God as to miss everything most dear in existence. Nothing could be more perilous for you than just that which you deem your happiness. Bushnell.

The only thing perfectly certain in life is its changefulness. The law of changes is a law that cannot change. It has already been carried out in every life that has ever lived on earth; it shall be carried out to the letter in our lives. There is a ministry in changes—a ministry of grace, which He who changes not would work in us; and they who have no changes must lose that ministry, and do in fact encounter perils in their spiritual life. One peril of prosperity is deadness and dulness toward truth; hearing as though one heard not; seeing as though one saw not; handling and tasting the bread and wine of truth as though no consecrating hands were offering them to us, no Word Incarnate saying of them: They are My Body and My Blood. Another peril which comes in the absence of changes is the decay of gratitude. They to whom life has long been rich and full, and sheltered from impoverishing changes, are in danger of losing that blessed grace of gratefulness which sanctifies the joy of possession. One may have his church so abundantly, his home so familiarly, his health so confidently that all conception of these things as gifts of God may fade from him. Another peril, and a greater one, which comes in the absence of changes, is the loss of the sense of dependence. Into many a life has crept that most subtle and most terrible loss, in times of unbroken, unchanged happiness. The loss of the sense of dependence has affected the soul’s judgment concerning earthly things; it has undermined its earnestness in prayer; it has tempted it to entrust life to the guidance of its own sagacity, rather than to the guidance of the Spirit and the providence of God. C. C. Hall.

20,21. David reverts suddenly to the fixed and deepest thought in his heart, the treachery of his friend. Deeply as he felt the revolt of his son, that probably did not surprise him; it was in accordance with previous indications of his character; but Ahithophel’s treason came on him without any preparation. Cook.

22. Cast upon Jehovah (what) He gives thee, and He will sustain thee; He will never suffer the righteous to be moved. What He gives thee to endure, what He lays upon thee, cast thou upon Him, by trusting in Him. A.—Cast thy burden upon the Lord. Hand it over, heave it upon Him, and He shall sustain thee, shall bear both, if thou trust Him with both; both thee and thy burden; He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Leighton.

Scarcely do we find in the Bible stronger expressions of anxiety and distress than in this Psalm. The writer’s first impulse was to free himself from the annoyances occasioned by the wickedness of others and the responsibilities that were laid upon him, by fleeing away and remaining in solitude. But better counsels prevailed. Instead of casting off his responsibilities and fleeing from his troubles, he was led to see that there was a God on high who was able to sustain him under the one, and to deliver him from the other, and to go to Him in earnest and confiding prayer. “As for me,” says he, “I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me.” Having thus found the true source of relief and strength, he invites others to share it with him: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee; He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” M. Hopkins.

God has taken our care upon Him already. It is no burden to Him, and He knows it would crush us, and He has assumed it. He understands our shortsightedness and weakness and frailty. He knows well how liable to err in our management we should be, even with the best intentions, and for interests dearest of all to our hearts. These interests, all that can affect our happiness, peace, and welfare here and hereafter, enter into His great scheme of universal Providence—that scheme which is to subdue all evil, enthroned right for an undisputed eternity—and are there and thus provided for; not apart, indeed, from our loyalty, our prayers, and our obedience, but in connection with them, and so made forever secure. He has arranged and provided for all, as our Father and Friend, guarding our treasures against the time of our glad inheritance. A. L. Stone.

Every soul has an individual life, and an individual history; then, as we are each a separate creation, so we are each a separate care to God. We are shut out from fellow-creatures in the seclusion of individuality that we may be shut in more closely with God. We differ from others that God may deal with each of us personally, that He may know us, love us, watch over us individually. God gives us special care, because He needs various workers. Each of us is sent into the world to do some particular work in some special place, and the very specialty of each one’s experience brings things to him in an aspect which cannot be exactly the same to any other. What a thought of precious comfort, that each one of us is the object of God’s care as much as if we were the only being in the universe. Surely! it is a balm for every sorrow to think that we may cast ourselves and our burdens upon God’s infinite care. Hallock.

What if we should, each one, read the verse for awhile just as it is and live by it. “Cast thy burden on the Lord.” “Thy burden”—not thy neighbor’s; “thy burden”—not the burden of sin, the spiritual burden, the temporal burden, the big burden, the little burden; not any one or two or three of these alone, but all of them and every other conceivable burden. “Cast thy burden on the Lord,” and put Him to the test of His sustaining power. Will it fail, think you? Interior.

When you have prayed to God about your distresses, and cast them upon Him, learn to be silent and be at peace. Your affairs are His affairs. If you have tried to live as His servant, and to do all things to please Him, He is your partner in business, and the real Head of the firm. He can protect you from misfortunes; but if He wants you to serve Him in trouble, it is because He can make trouble do more for you than prosperity. “Rest in the Lord.” The great life you live in Him is your true life, and none of the uncertainties or accidents of your external condition can touch it. Hallock.

“Thy burden,” or what thy God lays upon thee, lay thou it “upon the Lord.” His wisdom casts it on thee, it is thy wisdom to cast it on Him. He cast thy lot for thee, cast thy lot on Him. He gives thee thy portion of suffering, accept it with cheerful resignation, and then take it back to Him by thine assured confidence. S.

He shall sustain thee. The word “sustain” well expresses the sense of the Hebrew, which, though sometimes used for support and nourishment by food, yet readily admits the wider sense, uphold, sustain—i.e., to bear the lot of care, labor, or suffering which God may appoint. The passage is essentially reproduced by Peter: “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” Of kindred sentiment is Psalm 37: 5: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” No words can adequately express the richness and preciousness of these promises in their practical relations to the cares and burdens of every-day life. Every heart has its burdens; every heart knoweth its own as none else save God can know them. But this broad promise proffers all needful help under every burden. C.

It is very difficult to sympathize with one another’s burdens; and of course each, knowing only his own, thinks his own the heaviest. Christ alone can sympathize with all. But your burden is the one main thing you have to do with, suited for present discipline, a selected, ordained, adjusted thing—“thy burden.” Leave the balancing, and trust the Balancer. The Lord does not say, “I will take away thy burden,” but “I will sustain thee.” He will be “your arm every morning,” on which leaning you cannot faint. He will feed you with such hidden manna that you will grow so strong that you can carry anything. J. Vaughan.—True confidence in God and resting upon God will both free thee of thy burden and also bring in the strength of God to sustain and bear thee up from falling. Wouldst thou, therefore, own God as thy strength and fetch strength from God to thy soul? Rest upon God, roll thyself upon Him, and that, in time of greatest weakness; in time of greatest service; in times of greatest trials. S. Blackerby.

To the humble and obedient soul life has not one burden too many to carry, or one difficulty too severe to encounter; it says: All these things are appointed as gracious necessities in the perfecting of my education; I know that all things work together for good to them whose love is set upon the living God. This spirit drives away impatience and tranquilizes the soul with confidence. If the children of God suffered nothing but punishment, those who look on from the outside might well wonder as to the rewards and issues of virtue even in this world; but chastening is not punishment, it is training, it is education, it is experience, it is part of an inscrutable but beneficent method. J. P.

On most of those whom He loveth God layeth some burden. He gives them something to carry, and carry through. There are some burdens which go beyond our own ability, and in bearing which vain is the help of fellow-creatures. It is therefore unspeakably kind and gracious in the Lord that He invites us to communicate such solicitudes and sorrows to Himself, offering to sustain us under them or to sustain them in our stead. The burden, the care, or calamity which God helps us to carry will hurt us far less, and will be much more easily borne, than a minor sorrow to which we bring only our own resources, or at best the aid of a fellow-creature. The believer is no burden to his God, and He will not suffer the righteous to be removed. Hamilton.

Every true Christian has his own special burden of humiliation, difficulty, self-denial to carry. Mine is not the same as my fellow’s, but all of us are cross-bearers. Some of us try to get off, as the Crusaders did, by having a bit of red rag cut cross-shape and sewed on our sleeves. That is the fashionable sort of discipleship; but it is not real. The cross is heavy, and hard to carry; but, unless we do carry it, we are not His. And all the procession of cross-bearers go after the Lord. That implies the imitation of Jesus as the very badge of discipleship, and it contains a blessed lightening of the severity of the previous requirement; for, if we follow after Him, our crosses grow light, remembering His, and with Him for leader and companion. A. M.

The true way to live is to yield to no burden, to carry the heaviest load with courage and gladness, never to let one’s eyes be turned downward toward the earth, but to keep them ever lifted up to the hills. Men whose work requires them to stoop all the time, to work in a bent posture, every now and then may be seen straightening themselves up, taking a long, deep breath of air, and looking up toward the skies. Thus their bodies are preserved in health and in erectness in spite of their work. If, however, they never straighten up, they soon grow into the bent form in which they have to work. Whatever their toil or burden, men should train themselves to look often upward, to stand erect and get a glimpse of the sky of God’s love, and a breath of heaven’s pure, sweet air. Thus they will keep their souls erect under the heaviest load of work or care. J. R. M.

That state to which the Master refers when He forbids us to take thought is not foresight, neither is it sagacity. It is not prevision. It is anxious fretting. It is anxious forethought, and afterthought, too; for men fret both ways—for what is past and for what is coming; up and down; in all ways; in every direction; in ways imaginable and unimaginable. Anon.—Foresight and foreboding are two very different things. It is not that the one is the exaggeration of the other, but the one is opposed to the other. The more a man looks forward in the exercise of foresight, the less he does so in the exercise of foreboding. And the more he is tortured by anxious thoughts about a possible future, the less clear vision has he of a likely future, and the less power to influence it. A. M.—We have nothing to do with to-morrow until we get to it. When the day comes with its cares, then we may meet them and then God will provide for them. Duty only is ours—the faithful, diligent doing of God’s will day by day. The rest is God’s, and anxious care is unbelief. Our Father will surely take care of us if we are only faithful to Him. Away, then, with anxiety. Do your work, your duty, the bit of God’s will for the day, and let God care for you. Then the peace of God shall keep your heart and mind. J. R. M.

Even the innocent cares of life sometimes render it a burden. Toil for a living in such conditions as this world gives us is a daily disquietude. Human labor is heavily weighted with human wrongs. Competitions, rivalries, deceits, overreachings, treacheries, enmities, heartburnings, and oppressions make up large fragments of the life of trade. To encounter safely its conditions in this world, we need to make life itself a continuous prayer. We need to retire into God’s silence in the stillness of a state of prayer. Meditation and prayer are twin helpers to spiritual repose. The busiest and most heavily burdened life is full of spiritual analogies, by the aid of which thought may alternate in quick succession between earth and heaven, between daily toil and God. Thus the most laborious life may be enclosed in God’s thoughts, and made tributary to His plans. In no other way can we live in sympathy with God, or be assured of God’s sympathy with us. For such a hidden life, we need unwavering sympathy with Him who rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place and prayed; and who continued all night in prayer—‘The morning star finding Him where the evening star left Him.’ Phelps.

The child of God lays his affairs and himself on God, and so hath no pressing care. No care but the care of love, how to please, how to honor his Lord; and in this he depends on Him, too, both for skill and strength; and, touching the success of things, leaves that as none of his to be burdened with; casts it on God, and He careth for it. They need not both care, His care alone is sufficient; hence peace, inconceivable peace. Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ. Leighton.

23. This verse sounds like a prophetic anticipation of the suicide of Ahithophel, and the fate of Absalom; but the Psalmist probably does but express a fixed conviction in the justice of God. Cook.—God’s laws are no insignificant things to be broken with impunity. They are immutable, adamantine ordinances, set to guard all great and universal interests, lifting themselves up as impassable barriers between sin and holiness, and as long as God reigns they will never be relaxed in one title of their righteous requirements, nor fail one jot of their full vindication. Hallock.

Shall not live out half their days. A wicked man never lives out half his days; for either he is cut off before he hath lived half the course of nature, or he is cut off before he hath lived a quarter of the course of his desires; either he lives not half so long as he might, or not a tenth part so long as he would; and therefore let him die when he will, he dies out of season. He never kept time or season with God, and surely God will not keep or regard his time or season. Caryl.—Sin is a shortener of everything; it consumes our wealth, it confines our liberty, it impeacheth our health, and it abbreviateth our life, and brings us speedily unto our graves. Griffith Williams.

I will trust. Trust awakens fortitude. It

gives strength of heart and hope; inspires courage; lights the eye; nerves the impotent arm; plucks victory from defeat. Hope that is born of faith makes a man patient and strong. Amid all life’s vicissitudes he is sustained by the thought that within and around all things is the unfailing mercy of God. When the hearts of other men are failing them for fear on

account of the future of the world, he dwells in quietness. He sees the evil looming up; he knows that the storm will break; but he is not afraid of the issue, believing that it does not turn on the question of big battalions, but on the question as to what side has God on it. It is the goodness of God that he expects to see, and that vision cannot fail him. J. M. Campbell.