Psalms 62

He who has not in the sunny days made the Divine promises his own has no comforts to sustain him when trouble comes. But he who has pondered the Scriptures, and laid up in memory the precious truths and assurances, when called to pass through affliction has light in his dwelling. J. R. M.

1. My soul waiteth only upon God: From him cometh my salvation. 2 He only is my rock and my salvation: He is my high tower; I shall not be greatly moved. 3 How long will ye set upon a man, That ye may slay him, all of you, Like a bowing wall, like a tottering fence? 4 They only consult to thrust him down from his excellency [dignity]; They delight in lies: They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. [Selah 5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; For my expectation is from him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation: He is my high tower; I shall not be moved. 7 With God is my salvation and my glory:

The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.

8. Trust in him at all times, ye people; Pour out your heart before him:

God is a refuge for us. [Selah

9. Surely men of low degree are vanity [a breath], and men of high degree are a lie:

In the balances they will go up;

They are together lighter than vanity.

10. Trust not in oppression,

And become not vain in robbery:

If riches increase, set not your heart thereon.

11. God hath spoken once,

Twice have I heard this;

That power belongeth unto God:

12. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy:

For thou renderest to every man according to his work.

THIS bears a close resemblance in style and structure to the thirty-ninth, and was undoubtedly written by the same author. The earnestness of thought, the depth and force of religious feeling, no less than the vigor and sublimity of the language, leave no room for doubting the correctness of the inscription, which attributes it to David. The date of the composition is uncertain. It is more cheerful and hopeful than the Psalms written about the time of Absalom’s revolt, though some expressions may seem to refer to the outburst of an insurrection. Cook.

Strong in his trust in God, though assailed and threatened afresh, the Divine poet places himself, in calm resignation, in the hands of the one true Redeemer, and not only finds in Him rest, refreshment, strength for himself, but is also enabled to encourage, enlighten, and comfort others. Scarcely anywhere do we find faith in God more nobly asserted, more victoriously triumphant; the vanity of man, of human strength and riches, more clearly confessed; courage in the midst of peril more calm and more unshaken than in this Psalm, which is as forcible in its conception and its language, as it is remarkable for the vigorous and cheerful piety which it breathes. P.—The central thought—the key note of the Psalm is—God only my help and salvation; man powerless to harm me, but God almighty to defend. C.

The Psalm consists of three equal stanzas or strophes, each beginning with the particle only, and the first and second ending with salah. In all these parts the theme or burden is the same—to wit, a contrast between God and man, as objects of confidence. A.—The first two express the blessedness and security of trust in God when enemies assail (vs. 1-4, 5-8). The last places in forcible contrast with this the folly of reliance on man (vs. 9-12). P.

The whole tone is that of patient resignation. The first words are the key-note of the whole, “Truly unto God my soul is silence”—is all one great stillness of submissive waiting upon Him. It was in the very crisis of his fate, in the suspense of the uncertain issue of the rebellion, that these words, the very sound of which has calmed many a heart since, welled to his lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much heightened by the frequent recurrence of the word, which is variously translated “truly,” “surely,” and “only.” It carries the force of confident affirmation, like the “verily” of the New Testament, and is here most significantly prefixed to the assertions of his patient resignation (v. 1); of God’s defence (v. 2); of the enemies’ whispered counsels (v. 4); to his exhortation of his soul to the resignation which it already exercises (v. 5); and to the triumphant reiteration of God’s all-sufficient protection. How beautifully, too, does that reiteration—almost verbal repetition—of the opening words strengthen the impression of his habitual trust. His soul in its silence murmurs to itself, as it were, the blessed thoughts over and over again. Their echoes haunt his spirit “lingering and wandering on, as loth to die;” and if for a moment the vision of his enemies disturbs their flow, one indignant question flung at them suffices, “How long will ye rush upon a man? (how long) will ye all of you thrust him down as (if he were) a bowing wall, a tottering fence?” and with a rapid glance at their plots and bitter words, he comes back again to his calm gaze on God. Lovingly he accumulates happy names for Him, which, in their imagery, as well as in their repetition, remind us of the former songs of the fugitive. “My rock,” in whom I hide: “He is my salvation,” which is even more than “from Him cometh my salvation;” my “fortress,” my “glory,” “the rock of my strength,” “my refuge.” So many phases of his need and of God’s sufficiency thus gathered together, tell how familiar to the thoughts and real to the exexperience of the aged fugitive was his security in Jehovah. The thirty years since last he had wandered there have confirmed the faith of his earlier songs; and though the ruddy locks of the young chieftain are silvered with gray now, and sins and sorrows have saddened him, yet he can take up again with deeper meaning the tones of his old praise, and let the experience of age seal with its “verily” the hopes of youth. Exhortations to his people to unite themselves with him in his faith, and assurances that God is a refuge for them too, with solemn warnings to the rebels, close this Psalm of glad submission. It is remarkable for the absence of all petitions. He needs nothing beyond what he has. As the companion Psalm (sixty-third) says, his soul “is satisfied.” Communion with God has its moments of restful blessedness, when desire is stilled, and expires in peaceful fruition. A. M.

1-4. This Psalm was composed when David had become aware of a conspiracy to cast him down from his position of confidence and honor. His enemies had sought to undermine his reputation by calumny; and now they were preparing to rush upon him and overturn him like a tottering wall. But he descends into the depths of his soul, and finds there the calmness and security of an abiding trust in God. So deep and holy is this confidence, that he describes his soul as silent unto God—for such is the beautiful expression of the original—waiting without anxiety and without complaining. J. P. T.

1. For “only upon God” read “in silence for God only.” So in v. 5. Am. Com.—Or, “my soul is silently waiting unto God,” i.e., turned toward Him in speechless expectation, with unutterable yearning (see Psalm 33: 20). Cook.

“My soul is silent toward God.” In reverent awe and quiet trust my soul sits peacefully before Him, biding His time for deliverance, trustful that He doeth all things well. The same word, in a different grammatical form, occurs v. 5: “My soul, be thou silent toward God only. C.—The Hebrew word used is dumijah—that is, silent, resting, expecting, reflecting, solicitous, and observing. We ought to be subject to God as silent disciples before a master. Whatever God has allowed to happen to me, yet I will be silent before Him, and from my heart admire, both enduring His strokes and receiving His teaching. Thomas Le Blanc.

Only. The particle may be rendered only, as restrictive; or, surely, as affirmative. Our translators have rendered it differently in different verses of this Psalm; in v. 1, “truly,” in vs. 2, 4, 5, 6, “only,” in v. 9, “surely.” If we render “only,” the meaning will be here that God exclusively is the object of trust; if “surely,” that this truth, that God is his salvation, has come home to him with a more lively conviction, with a more blessed certainty than ever. The first line of the verse rendered literally is, “Only unto God my soul is silence,” i.e., is hushed into perfect resignation before Him, simply trusting in His love, and leaving all that concerns me to the disposal of His fatherly will. “It is,” says Calvin, “that settled submission, when the faithful rest in the promises of God, give place to His Word, obey His rule, and keep down every murmur of passion in their hearts.” But this, as he also remarks most truly, is the result not of one only, but of many struggles with the temptations of Satan. P.

The heart is ever prone to divide its confidence between God and the creature. We must “wait only upon God.” “He only” must be our “rock,” our “salvation,” and our “defence.” Then we are frequently tempted to look to an arm of flesh first, and when that fails us we look to God. He must be our first as well as our only resource. C. Mackintosh.—He who talks much of his troubles to men is apt to fall into a way of saying too little of them to God; while he who has often experienced the blessed alleviation which flows from silent converse with the Eternal, loses much of his desire for the sympathy of his fellows. Spreading out our distress too largely before men serves only to make it broader; and hence the proverb, “Talking of trouble makes it double.” On the contrary, if when in distress we can bear it always as in the sight of God, submissively waiting for succor from Him, according to these words of the Psalmist, the distress lies upon the surface of the heart like the morning mist, which the sun as it ascends dissipates into light clouds. Tholuck.

The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Such a silent will is a strong will. The true secret of strength lies in submission. We must keep our hearts silent too. He cannot say, “My soul is silent unto God,” whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the market-place. There must be the silence of the mind as well as of the heart and will. We must cultivate the habit of detaching our thoughts from earth and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them. A. M.

2. Only He (is) my rock and my salvation, my height (high place, refuge, or asylum); I shall not be shaken (moved from my firm position) much (or greatly). The adverbial use of much is the same in Hebrew and in English. This qualified expression seems to be intended to suggest that he does not hope to escape all disaster and calamity, but only such as would be ruinous. He only, God and no one else, can be such a protector. A.

My salvation. The repetition of the word is not without meaning. Not only does his salvation come from God, but God is his salvation. The being on whom he waits, the loving person in whom he trusts, the God whose arms compass him about, is to him all that is comprehended in that great word salvation. He heaps these epithets upon God, says Calvin, that he may use them as so many shields against the assaults of Satan. P.—“Even He that is the Rock of ages is my Rock; He that is the God of salvation is my Salvation; He that is the Most High is my High Place; and therefore I have all the reason in the world to confide in Him. H.

3. How long will ye rush against a man, Will ye all of you break (him) down, As (though he were) a bowing wall, a tottering fence?

4. Only from his dignity have they taken counsel to thrust him down. P.

5. Only to God be still my soul, for from Him (is) my hope. The view just taken of his fellow-men drives him back to God, and he exhorts himself to cherish the same confidence which he had before expressed. Be still, silent, trusting, and submissive. A.—Emphatic here is the word “only.” Look to God and to Him only; to no one else; shut off absolutely all other reliance; settle it deeply in thy soul that no other help is to be thought of. His is all-sufficient; none other can avail to the least purpose whatever. C.

They trust not God at all who trust Him not alone. He that stands with one foot on a rock and another foot upon a quicksand will sink and perish, as certainly as he that standeth with both feet upon a quicksand. David knew this, and therefore calleth earnestly upon his soul (for his business lay most within doors) to trust only upon God. Trapp.—That life is most holy in which there is least of petition and desire, and most of waiting upon God; that in which petition most often passes into thanksgiving. In the prayer taught by Christ there is only one petition for personal good, and that a singularly simple and modest one. Give us this day our daily bread," and even that expresses dependence far rather than anxiety or desire. F. W. R.

For from Him is my hope. He never disappoints the patient abiding of His children. There is laid up, He says, a sure reward for my silence, and therefore will I restrain myself lest my haste should hinder the course of my salvation. Calvin.—Our patience is quite as much a measure of our wisdom as our enterprise; nay, what folly stamps every enterprise which is not begun in the patience which can bear delays as well as in the courage that can dare risks! Children of time, when we are doing our best we must wait God’s hours for opportunity in our special aims; and, above all our special aims, we must lean upon Him to carry us forward in the one Divine way which earthly power may accept but not control. Blessed is the office of true patience in relation to time. Vast is the loss it saves by keeping for efficient action the time and thought saved from fretting and struggling against what cannot be helped. Vast is the gain it secures by keeping the soul calm before God, accepting the allotments of His providence, and watching wisely the lessons of the events which it cannot control. Hallock.

6,7. Twice in this Psalm hath he repeated this, in the second and in the sixth verses, “He is my rock and my salvation, and my defence,” and (as it is enlarged in the seventh verse) “my refuge and my glory.” If my “refuge,” what enemy can pursue me? If my “defence,” what temptation shall wound me? If my “rock,” what storm shall shake me? If my “salvation,” what melancholy shall deject me? If my “glory,” what calumny shall defame me? God is all these, and all else that all souls can think to every believer. Donne.—He in whom believers trust is a great God, and loves to do all things like Himself. Wherefore look for great things from Him: great assistances; great enlargements; great deliverances; yea, the forgiving of great sins, and the great gift of a great salvation. Arrowsmith.

Observe how the Psalmist brands his own initials upon every name which he rejoicingly gives to his God—my expectation, my rock, my salvation, my glory, my strength, my refuge; he is not content to know that the Lord is all these things; he acts faith toward Him, and lays claim to Him under every character. S.

8. Trust in God is that high act or exercise of faith whereby the soul, looking upon God and casting itself on His goodness, power, promises, faithfulness, and providence, is lifted up above fears and discouragements; above perplexing doubts and disquietments; either for the obtaining and continuance of that which is good, or for the preventing or removing of that which is evil. “Trust in Him at all times.” T. Lye.—Trust in Him upon every emergency, to guide us when we are in doubt, to protect us when we are in danger, to supply us when we are in want, to strengthen us for every good word and work. H.—We should trust when we can see, as well as when we are utterly in the dark. Adversity is a fit season for faith; but prosperity is not less so. God at all times deserves our confidence. We in all circumstances need to place our confidence in Him. S.

What God seeks is the confidence, the affection, the entire possession of the living, thinking, intelligent, undying spirit—the spirit which was originally formed to bear the lineaments of His own image—the spirit for whose redemption His only begotten Son hath lived and labored and died. It is this which God seeks, and when He gets it He not only obtains what He seeks, but He gets moreover everything else which the man has—a key to all his treasures—a place in all his enjoyments—a life-interest in all his possessions. He has only to touch the springs that are in the heart, and everything else which the man has will be consecrated or set apart for His service. J. A. W.

Pour out your heart before Him. David’s faith had been so richly joyous to his own soul, and had brought him such salvation over his personal enemies, that he can now commend it most heartily to all people in all their possible emergencies. Oh, all ye people of every name and of all conditions—at all times, under whatever trials or straits—pour out your heart before this great and bountiful God. He is a refuge for all who put their trust in Him. Pause and think of it! Burdened hearts will here find their burdens lifted; desolate hearts will be cheered; the sad will be made joyful; the lost will be saved, in the love and the might of this perfect Saviour. C.

It is a personal and sacred intimacy which the Psalmist means, a dear, confidential friendship, a coming to Him as we come to the tenderest and truest heart on earth that gives back the throbbing of our own, a touching of His hand, a looking into His eyes, a hearing of His tender words, a consciousness of His nearness, the sunny warmth of His smile bathing us, the door of His sheltering bosom open to us in all hours of cold and fear and loneliness, His light shining upon our darkened path, His strength helping us over difficulties, His joy illuminating sad hours, His sympathy bending over us when we droop in grief, His assured, unchanging and inalienable faithfulness abiding by us in trials and cares and wanderings till the world shall end. We cannot tell a stranger of this alliance: we have no language for those strange, conscious interviews wherein heaven and earth blend, those speechless moments when God and we come together, and down in the tongueless joy of our souls the thought throbs silently, “It is good to draw high to God.” A. L. Stone.

According to our love, so is our faith and trust in God; and according to our trust, such is our freedom at the throne of grace. Trust in Him, and pour out your hearts before Him. S. Lee.—God has given thee His Son’s righteousness to justify thee; He has also, because thou art a son, sent forth the Spirit of His Son into thy heart to satisfy thee, and to help thee to cry unto Him, Father, Father! Wilt thou not cry? wilt thou not desire? Thy God has bidden thee open thy mouth; He has bid thee open it wide, and promised, saying, “and I will fill it;” and wilt thou not desire? Oh, thou hast a license, a leave, a grant to desire; wherefore, be not afraid to desire great mercies of the God of heaven. Bunyan.

Prayer is believing work, thinking work, searching work, and nothing worth if heart and hand do not join in it. T. Adams.—When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words without heart. Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer. An.

Faith in prayer is a general quality of the whole soul in all its acts and aspects toward the Saviour, and pertains to its habitual attitude; It is not a mere sudden, special expectation of having some greatly wanted been granted. It is, for the most part, a grace of slow, patient, and silent growth. Most of us, in our common moods, scarcely touch the rim of its great depth of meaning, or taste of its incalculable peace. It is true just as it stands—“According to your faith, in asking, be it unto you.” It is true of our private conflicts with the tempter, our struggles with ourselves, our resistance of the sins that most easily beset us, our fight with temper and pride and indolence and luxury, with Satan in his most angelic garment. Spiritual victory and progress will be gained on our knees. F. D. H.

Prayer, to one who lives in daily service of God, oftentimes takes the form of simple communion, the spreading out of our life to one whom we love and trust, not for the sake of any special advice or help, but for the heartheart which there is in the thing itself. For none love to lean and recline entirely upon another so much as strong natures that ordinarily do not lean at all; and so the heart that goes shaded and shut, that hides its thoughts and dreads the knowledge of men’s eyes, flings itself wide open to the eye of God. Anon.

To be a religious man and to pray are really one and the same thing. To join the thought of God with every thought of any importance that occurs to us; in all our admiration of external nature to regard it as the work of His wisdom; to take counsel with God about all our plans, that we may be able to carry them out in His name; and even in our most mirthful hours to remember His all-seeing eye; this is the prayer without ceasing to which we are called, and which is really the essence of true religion. Schleiermacher.

The habit of exposing the contents of the heart to Christ, of referring all our actions to His will, of commending all our troubles to His care, and all our difficulties to His direction, the realizing Him in some measure as being by our side, always sympathizing, always inviting our confidence, always ready and willing to help us, the being sincere in all our dealings with Him, and perfectly single-minded in seeking to know His will—this is one great and sure test of love for Him. E. M. G.

Learn to entwine with your prayers the small cares, the trifling sorrows, the little wants of daily life. Whatever affects you—be it a changed look, an altered tone, an unkind word, a wrong, a wound, a demand you cannot meet, a change you cannot notice, a sorrow you cannot disclose—turn it into prayer and send it up to God. Disclosures you may not make to man you can make to the Lord. Man may be too little for your great matters; God is not too great for your small ones. Only give yourself to prayer, whatever be the occasion that calls for it. Winslow.

The more we pray, so much the more prayer becomes indispensable to us. The more our heart is accustomed to converse with Jesus—to tell Him everything, both great and small, to lay before Him our heights and depths—the more the heart pours out itself to Him, the more it longs for Him. For not merely our being accustomed to Him, but His Spirit that He gives us, binds us to His heart. Caspars.

When we turn to Jesus, who can read our inmost soul—when we turn to Him, who never will upbraid us or despise us, though we make bare to Him every poor weakness, every sorrow, and every sin about us—we feel that the need for that reserve is gone, and that it is no shame nor humiliation to tell out to Him all we fear and suffer, with the same abandonment with which the little child sobs out the story of its little sorrows at a kind mother’s knee. At the throne of grace, the man who, whatever he suffered, would never complain to mortal, may without reserve lay before the Redeemer the tale of his wants and woes. A. K. H. Boyd.

We are opposing God’s method of working, if our life has a tendency to incapacitate us for the enjoyment of prayer at all times If by needless excess of worldly cares; if by inordinate desires, which render it impossible for us to accomplish our objects in life without such excess of care; if by frivolous habits; if by the reading of infidel or effeminate literature; if by an indolent life; if by any self-indulgence in physical regimen—we render the habit of fragmentary prayer impracticable or unnatural to us, we are crossing the methods of God’s working. Something has gone wrong, is going wrong, in the life of that Christian who finds himself thus estranged from filial freedom with God. Such a Christian must, sooner or later, be brought back to Christ, and must begin life anew. He will come back heavy laden and in tears. Phelps.

Private prayer is a golden key to unlock the mysteries of the Word unto us. The knowledge of many choice and blessed truths are but the returns of private prayer. The Word dwells most richly in their hearts who are most in pouring out of their hearts before God in their closets. T. Brooks.

God is a refuge for us. The time of trouble is the time of prayer. And this throws light upon God’s dealings with men, and families, and nations. He sends trouble to make men see their weakness and feel their need of Him, and call unto Him for help and rescue. The one hundred and seventh Psalm recites these fluctuations of God’s providence and of man’s confidence, and reiterates with every illustration this historic burden: “Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses.” A. L. Stone.

Cavils against prayer. “God’s promises, by reason of His unchangeableness, may be relied on; what occasion, then, of prayer, seeing the thing promised will come round of its own steady accord, whether you open your lips or no?” The answer is short and simple. These promises are made only to those who expect, and desire, and ask for them. They are not promised indifferently and come out of their own accord to all, but to such only who have meditated them, and who value them, and desire them, and earnestly seek them; being the high and holy attractions by which God intended to work upon the nature of man, and lead it out of its present low and sunken estate into glorious liberty and unwearied ambition of every noble excellence. They are prizes in the hand of God to stimulate the soul’s activities—more glorious prizes than laurel wreaths—and they are yielded only to an application of faculties, at the least, as intense and ardent as is put forth in pursuit of human ambition. God doth not cheapen His promises down to a glance at them with the eye, or a mouthing of them with the tongue, but He requireth of those that would have them an admiration equal to that of lovers, an estimation equal to that of royal diadems, and a pursuit equal to that of Olympic prizes. Another cavil against prayer is drawn from the unchangeableness of God. If God’s promises did embrace nothing but abstract justice, and measure out nice and strict desert, then their unchangeableness were the death-blow to all expectation of future weal; but seeing they contain mercy, and forgiveness, and peace, and everlasting blessedness to all who receive His oracles and walk thereby—being a rule not to equity only, but a rule to mercy and to bounty, and to whatever else is amiable and attractive to the soul of man—it comes to pass that their stability and unchangeableness is the stability and unchangeableness of that wise and wide and lovely administration which sufficeth to comfort and upbind the fallen, as well as to strike down and discomfit the refractory and rebellious. E. Irving.

9. Of low degree.** Our estimate of man depends upon our estimate of God. David knows that men of low and high degree, if separated from the primal fount of every good, weigh nothing, and are less than nothing. Tholuck.—All are less (lighter) than a breath. Two Hebrew words for man—the man of the earth, frail; and the man in power and dignity, commanding—are brought together here to give force to this statement; that all men alike—the least or the greatest—are less than a breath when measured against the great God. C.—If there were any one among men immortal, not liable to sin, or change, whom it were impossible for any one to overcome, but who was strong as an angel, such a one might be something; but inasmuch as every one is a man, a sinner, mortal, weak, liable to sickness and death, exposed to pain and terror, and liable to so many miseries that it is impossible to count them, the conclusion must be a valid one: “Man is nothing.” Arndt.

10. They are not to allow their heart to be befooled by unjust gain on their own part, neither are they when their riches increase to set their heart upon them, as if they were something truly great and making blessed. D.—Money will purchase plenty, but not peace; it will furnish your table with luxuries, but not you with an appetite to enjoy them; it will surround your sick-bed with physicians, but not restore health to your sickly frame; it will encompass you with a cloud of flatterers, but never procure you one true friend; it will bribe into silence the tongues of accusing men, but not an accusing conscience; it will pay some debts, but not the least one of all your debts to the law of God; it will relieve many fears, but not those of guilt—the terrors that crown the brows of Death. He stands as grim and terrible by the dying bed of wealth as by the pallet of the poorest beggar whom pitiless riches has thrust from her door. Guthrie.

If riches increase set not your hearts thereon. Because it is hard to have riches and not to trust in them if they increase, though by lawful and honest means, we must take heed lest we let out our affections inordinately toward them. Set not your heart upon them; be not eager for them, nor put a confidence in them as your portion; do not value yourselves and others by them; make not the wealth of the world your chief good and highest end; in short, do not make an idol of it." This we are most in danger of doing when they increase; when the grounds of the rich man brought forth plentifully, then he said to his soul, Take thine ease in these things. It is a smiling world that is most likely to draw the heart away from God, on whom only it should be set. H.—Many a man when he begins to accumulate wealth commences at the same moment to ruin his soul, and the more he acquires, the more closely he blocks up his liberality, which is, so to speak, the very mouth of spiritual life. Instead of doing more for God he does less; the more he saves the more he wants, and the more he wants of this world the less he cares for the world to come. S.

Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, and say not unto it, Thou art my confidence. A slave unto Mammon makes no servant unto God. Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith; numbs the apprehension of anything above sense, and only affected with the certainty of things present makes a peradventure of things to come; lives but unto one world, nor hopes but fears another; makes their own death sweet unto others, bitter unto themselves; brings formal sadness and scenical mourning. Browne.—Where wealth accumulates around those whose hearts are set upon it, it develops and gives domination to self-conceit; a conceit that they can do something better for themselves than bowing to God; that they know something better than to submit to God’s teachings; that they can secure to themselves what is better, and happier, and more ennobling than the holiness, the meekness, the humility, the self-denial, the devotion, which are inseparable from the possession of the favor of God. Growing wealth nourishes this vain conceit. It makes men feel that riches are a sure, reliable basis of their trust; that wealth actually meets all their wants; that it is a resource which will always transcend all their wants. It inflates them to say to the claims of religion, to the pleadings of Christ’s ambassadors, to God Himself, “Who is the Lord, that we should serve Him? and what profit shall we have if we pray unto Him.” J. Vance.

It is dangerous even to contemplate successful, sudden riches. While you look, you envy, you thirst. There is nothing evil in riches, unless got by wrong. No, but the deceitfulness of riches, their dominion over the heart, their idolatrous, absorbing power, that is the danger. Riches may increase, by God’s providence, even in the way of this pilgrimage; but God’s direction is, if they increase, set not your heart upon them. G. B. C.

To be rich is a grave responsibility; to desire to be rich is a great temptation; to resolve to be rich is a fearful peril. None are ever accused or denounced in the Gospel simply for having riches; but such are warned against making riches their trust. The history of mercantile communities, of railway investments, of stock speculations, show that nothing is more uncertain or delusive than what men fancy to be prosperity; and the history of the Church shows that nothing is more likely to draw away the heart from God than the possession of great wealth. Hence the rich are admonished to cultivate the sense of dependence upon God, and to save themselves from corruption and apostasy by giving freely to all good causes. The desire of riches should never be suffered to take possession of the heart, for this corroding passion is a root of all evil; while the purpose to be rich, as the one aim of life, is almost certain to lure one on to the destruction of his soul. No sin is more dangerous than covetousness; none more damning. The offset to this perilous temptation is faith. A faith that measures this life by the next; a faith that believes in God as the rewarder of them that seek Him; a faith that puts righteousness above Mammon; a faith that sees Christ upon His throne, and feels assured of immortality at His appearing—can rest content with the bare means of living, and of serving Him. When earthly possessions vanish this contented piety realizes the greatness of its gain. J. P. T.

If a rich man employ his wealth well, he will possess it the longer; but if he set his heart too much upon it, he will quickly lose it; he may possess it, but by no means must he let his wealth possess him. Spencer.—If thou desire not to be too poor, desire, also, not to be too rich. He is rich, not that possesses much, but that covets no more; and he is poor, not that enjoys little, but that wants too much. The contented mind wants nothing which it hath not; the covetous mind wants not only what it hath not, but likewise what it hath. Quarles.

Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them, and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent. Though a cup of cold water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed, and treat the poor as our Saviour did the multitude, to the reliques of some baskets. Diffuse thy beneficence early, and while thy treasures call thee master; there may be an Atropos of thy fortunes before that of thy life, and thy wealth cut off before that hour when all men shall be poor. Browne.

There can be nothing intrinsically wrong in the gathering of riches. The harm comes in through the spirit in which all this is done, and the distinction between the right way and the wrong way has been stated with singular force and felicity by Ruskin: “With all brave and rightly trained men their work is first, their fee second—very important always, but still second. And this is no small distinction. It is between life and death in a man; between heaven and hell for him. You cannot serve two masters. If your work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your master, and the Lord of work, who is God. But if your fee is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee, who is the devil.” Wealth won by those with whom fee is second should bring with it slight taint of poison, and be no more deserving of disapprobation than the acquirement of great stores of learning, or the attainment of high skill in the use of the pen, the brush, or the chisel. Herein, no doubt, lies the great difficulty in the whole matter. It is safe to say that it takes more grace to get rich in a strictly Christian spirit than to spend what has been accumulated. In order to win wealth, one must face fierce competition at every turn; and the temptations are frequent and severe to meet the competition that is unfair and unscrupulous upon its own ground—to fight the commercial devil with his own weapons, forgetting to take God into counsel, that a better way may be found. “Christianity says, Whatever thy hands find to do that is lawful to be done, do it with the whole heart. But do it to the glory of God. Be unworldly at your world’s work. Buying, possessing, accumulating—this is not worldliness. But doing this in the love of it, with no love of God paramount, doing it so that thoughts of eternity and of God are an intrusion, doing it so that one’s spirit is secularized in the process—this is worldliness. Let a man beware of this. It will eat out his piety as inevitably as he lives, and allows it.” (H. Johnson.) J. M. Oxley.

11,12. In conclusion, the sacred poet solemnly confirms his previous exhortation by an appeal to God’s revelation. Once . . . twice, i.e., many times. Compare Job 33: 14; 40: 5. And this is the substance of the revelation, that God is both a God of power and a God of love. If we need strength, we shall find it not in man, who is but as a fleeting vapor, but in God, who is Almighty. If we covet a reward, let us seek it not in robbery or in riches, but from the loving hand of Him who rewardeth every man according to his work. This is the only truly worthy representation of God. Power without love is brutality, and love without power is weakness. Power is the strong foundation of love, and love is the beauty and the crown of power. P.—There are really three attributes of God here mentioned, His power, His mercy, and His justice; but as the last is only introduced to qualify the second, by a kind of afterthought, they may still be reckoned as but two. A.

There now follow two Divine utterances. They are the two great truths: that God has power over everything earthly, so that nothing happens without Him and everything opposed to Him must sooner or later succumb; and that to this same God, the Lord of all, belongs also grace, the energy of which is measured in accordance with His omnipotence. The poet confirms these two truths by appealing to His righteous rule in history. He recompenses every man according to his work, as Paul confesses (Rom. 2 : 6) no less than David, and indeed in David’s words. Each one is recompensed according to his behavior, which is the outcome of the relation in which he stands to God. He who opposes the will of God has to feel God’s punitive power; and he who, longing for salvation, resigned his own will to God’s, receives from God the promised reward of fidelity; his resignation becomes attainment, and his hoping accomplishment. D.

11. Power belongeth unto God.

The life and vigor of faith is very much concerned in the belief of God’s power. It is, indeed, one of the first steps to all religion. Therefore it is put in the front of our creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty;” and he that believes that first article will the more easily believe all the rest. W. Wisheart.

12. Also unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy.

This tender attribute sweetens the grand thought of his power; the Divine strength will not crush us, but will be used for our good. God is so full of mercy that it belongs to Him, as if all the mercy in the universe came from God, and still was claimed by Him as His possession. His mercy, like His power, endureth forever, and is ever present in Him, ready to be revealed. S.

A perfectly righteous Being must be merciful, because He must desire that all other beings were righteous, and to attain this is the highest mercy. And, conversely, a perfectly merciful Being must be righteous, because that which mercy or grace desires is the highest welfare of all, and this can be attained only through righteousness. The truth that justice and mercy are from the same root in the Divine nature apappears to be obscured in modern Christendom, where mercy is too often thought of as opposed to justice, and needing some artificial reconciliation with it. But it was understood in Israel of old. “To Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for Thou renderest to every man according to his work,” said the Psalmist—that is to say, “Because justice is Thine, therefore is mercy Thine also.” M.

These, then, are the two grand truths that the law, yea, the whole revelation of God, declares through every page. He is the Almighty—He is the Most Merciful; and hence the inference, the powerful, just, and holy God, the most merciful and compassionate Lord, will by and by judge the world, and will render to man according to his works. A. Clarke.

Be careful rather of what thou dost than of what thou hast; for what thou hast is none of thine, and will leave thee at thy death. But what thou dost is thine, and will follow thee to thy grave, and plead for thee or against thee at thy resurrection. Quarles.

These great central truths in respect to God and His ways with man were impressively revealed to the ancients of David’s time, and indeed to the ages long before. They are here because they bear strongly on the points contemplated in this Psalm. This great God, of boundless power, and of blended justice and mercy, will forevermore take cognizance of the moral life of His creature man. Let none think to evade His judgments! To all who wait before Him in silent reverence and obedient trust, it shall be well; but woe to him who recklessly disowns His authority and tramples on His law! C.