Psalms 84

1. How amiable [lovely] are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out [sing for joy] unto the living God. 3 Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, Even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, My King, and my God. 4 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: They will be still praising thee. [Selah 5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; In whose heart are the high ways to Zion. 6 Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs; Yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings.

7. They go from strength to strength, Every one of them appeareth before God in Zion. 8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: Give ear, O God of Jacob. [Selah 9 Behold, O God our shield, And look upon the face of thine anointed. 10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thou- sand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11 For the LORD God is a sun and a shield: The LORD will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 12 O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

IN its general character this Psalm very nearly resembles Psalm 42. Like that, it is the ardent outpouring of a man of no common depth and tenderness of feeling, the expression of a de- voted love for the house and worship of Jeho- vah. Like that, it is written under circum- stances of suffering and depression, at a time when the Psalmist was in exile, or at a distance from the sanctuary. Like that, it touches, and even more fully, on the celebration of the na- tional feast, and pictures the crowd of pilgrims on their way to the holy city. In both Psalms there is the same deep pathos, the same “ex- quisite delicacy and tenderness of thought,” in both the same strain of remembrance and of anticipation, half sad, half joyful. Certain turns of expression are the same in both. Compare v. 2 here with 42 : 1, 2; v. 4 here, “they will still (or yet) praise Thee,” with 42 : 5, “for I shall yet praise Him;” the name of God as the “living God,” v. 2 here, and 42 : 2 (occurring nowhere else in the Psalter); the phrase, “appear before God,” v. 7 here, and 42 : 2; “thy dwellings” or “tabernacles,” v. 1 here, and 43 : 3. But there is this differ- ence, that here nothing is said to define exactly the locality in which the Psalm was written; nor is there any allusion to the taunts of enemies, to “men of deceit and wrong,” such as meet us in Psalm 42. The Psalm dwells on the blessedness of God’s service in His house (vs. 1-4), the supreme happiness of those who are permitted to take their part in it (vs. 5-7), and asks that the Psalmist himself, though shut out from access to the sanctuary, may nevertheless find God to be his sun and shield (vs. 8-12). P.

It is all through a fervent and tender expres- sion of love for Jehovah’s sanctuary; of love which yearns in the distance to return thither, and pronounces all those blessed who have there their true home. D.—The whole tone of this Psalm is that of inviting men to the tab- ernacle of the Lord. It contemplates their journeying thither, but sees no toils, no dis- comforts, but only sweet associations and foun- tains of delight in the very travels up from dis- tant cities to the place of appearing before God in Zion. C.

1. How dear (to me are) Thy dwellings, O Jehovah, (God of) hosts! The adjective is ren- dered by the English versions amiable, in the sense of the French aimable, lovely. But the usage of the Hebrew word requires it to be un- derstood as meaning dear, beloved, which is ex- actly the idea here required by the context. The plural dwellings has reference to the subdivisions and appurtenances of the sanctuary, and is applied to the tabernacle in Psalm 43 : 3. The Divine titles are as usual significant. While one suggests the covenant relation between God and the petitioner, the other makes His sovereignty the ground of a prayer for His protection. The force of this impassioned exclamation is enhanced by the structure of the sentence, which consists of a single clause. With the whole verse compare Psalm 27 : 1-5. A.

“How amiable”—words which legitimately mean, how worthy of being loved, how lovable in general; but the Hebrew is more definite and personal: How dear to my heart—oh, how tenderly do I love the place where Thou dwellest, O Lord of hosts! It is rather an utterance of the heart than a judgment of the intelligence, expressing what one feels for himself rather than what he holds as a general, abstract truth. C.—What made the tabernacle lovely was within; here the priests were to be seen in their robes, doing their duty and service, and at certain times the high-priest in his rich apparel; here were seen the sacrifices slain and offered, by which the people were taught the nature of sin, the strictness of justice, and the necessity and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ; here the Levites were heard singing their songs, and blowing their trumpets. But much more lovely are the Church of God and its ordinances in Gospel times, where Christ, the Great High-priest, is seen in the glories of His person and the fulness of His grace; where Zion’s priests, or the ministers of the Gospel, stand clothed, being full fraught with salvation and the tidings of it; where Christ is evidently set forth as crucified and slain, in the ministry of the Word and the administration of ordinances; here the Gospel trumpet is blown and its joyful sound echoed forth, and songs of love and grace are sung by all believers; besides, what makes these tabernacles still more lovely are the presence of God, so that they are no other than the house of God, the gate of heaven; the provisions that are here made and the company that is here enjoyed. Gill.

What can be more like heaven upon earth than a company of devout souls met in one place, having God in the midst of them and partaking of His communications, devoting themselves to His service, professing their faith and hope in Christ and their dependence upon Him; and joining hearts and voices with the heavenly hosts of angels, in singing the everlasting praises of their Creator and Redeemer; in declaring His wonderful works of love and mercy, and in adoring His infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, which are conspicuous to all the world? Archbishop Sharp.

2. Soul . . . heart . . . flesh.** Marking the whole man, with every faculty and affection. The verbs are also very expressive. The first, longeth, means literally, “hath grown pale,” as with the intensity of the feeling; the second, fainteth, is more exactly, “falleth,” or “is consumed.” P.—“Longing,” “fainting,” are strong expressions of intense, languishing desire—a feeling that nothing else can at all satisfy. The Hebrew verb for crieth out is used almost if not quite invariably for the shoutings of exultant joy; not for the imploring cry for help. The distinction is important as bearing upon the tone of feeling that pervades the Psalm. C.—The Psalmist reaches the climax of desire not when he speaks of the sanctuary, but of God Himself. Heart and flesh being both mentioned, we are taught that it is the desire of the whole man. In the original there is expectation, eagerness, desire, all concentrated. It is an intensity that drowns all other desires—“crieth out for God.” A. G. Brown.

Which one of these hearts is satisfied with what it is? Which of you is content—deeply, thoroughly content—with a decorous and prosperous and cultured career? Is there no crying out, from within, for the living God? Does not the infinite and solemn mystery challenge us from the hours of suffering, and of silence, and even of gladness itself? Does not the very beauty of the earth and the sea and the sky awaken an awful sense of the “light that never was on sea or shore;” and does not society sometimes leave you weary and hungry and cold, and is not the fulness of joy attended by an emptiness that the world with its largest promise cannot fill? Have you not spiritual sensibility enough to feel yet that you are poor and blind and miserable and sinful, before God? These, then, are all inner voices beseeching for the life that is hid with Christ in God. Through all its deepest organs the soul is kept mercifully restless till it tastes of that life. F. D. H.

3. “God fails not,” as one has beautifully said, “to find a house for the most worthless, and the nest for the most restless of birds.” What confidence this should give us! How we should rest! What repose the soul finds that casts itself on the watchful, tender care of Him who provides so fully for the need of all His creatures! We know what the expression of “nest” conveys, just as well as that of “a house.” Is it not a place of security, a shelter from storm, a covert to hide one’s self in, from every evil, a protection from all that can harm, “a place to rest in, to nestle in, to joy in”? Anon.

The Psalmist feels like a wandering bird, homeless, until he finds a refuge in God’s house. The latter half of the verse, “even Thine altars,” appears rather to be an exclamation, as though the Psalmist would say, “The birds have their houses; my refuge and home, the place in which my heart finds all its comfort, is the altar of God.” Cook.

It is evidently the design of this passage to intimate to us that in the house and at the altar of God a faithful soul findeth freedom from care and sorrow, quiet of mind, and gladness of spirit, like a bird that has secured a little mansion for the reception and education of her young. And there is no heart endued with sensibility which does not bear its testimony to the exquisite beauty and propriety of this affecting image. Bishop Horne.—The points in the analogy are home, rest, and liberty. The house of God, the house of the Father and the elder Brother and all the children, is and must be from its nature a home. All needed rest and comfort is to be found in it. And to the soul in God’s house, as to the bird in its nest, there is a happy combination of rest and freedom. A nest is not a cage. There is rest in revealed truth in Christ, in a reconciled God, in holiness; but there is the freedom of a spirit which abides in these, because they are ever true and real to it, and which goes forth at liberty to seek and find all that is good or true. W. Morison.

4. The thought of v. 3 is completed. The blessedness of God’s house is that there men praise Him. This it was that made that house so precious to the Psalmist. And what Christian man can climb higher than this—to find in the praise of God the greatest joy of his life? P.—If there be a heaven upon earth, it is in praising God, in continually praising Him. Apply this to His house above; blessed are they that dwell there, angels and glorified saints, for they rest not day or night from praising God. Let us therefore spend as much of our time as may be in that blessed work in which we hope to spend a joyful eternity. H.

5-7. But not only blessed are they who dwell in the holy place in God’s city, and near to His house; blessed are they who can visit it, with the caravan of pilgrims, at the great national festivals. They cherish the remembrance of such seasons. Every spot of the familiar road, every station at which they have rested, lives in their heart. The path may be dry and dusty, through a lonely and sorrowful valley, but nevertheless they love it. The pilgrim band, rich in hope, forget the trials and difficulties of the way; hope changes the rugged and stony waste into living fountains. The vale blossoms as if the sweet rain of heaven had covered it with blessings. Hope sustains them at every step; from station to station they renew their strength as they draw nearer to the end of their journey, till at last they appear before God, present themselves as His worshippers, in His sanctuary in Zion. No wonder that in all ages men have rejoiced to find in this beautiful picture an image of the Christian life. To what can that so aptly be compared as to a pilgrimage in a vale of tears? Is it not by the hope of appearing before God in the heavenly Jerusalem that the Christian is sustained? Does he not find fountains of refreshment in the wilderness of the world? Does not God’s grace visit him like the sweet refreshing shower from heaven? Does he not advance from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from glory to glory, till he reaches his journey’s end? P.

5. “Whose strength is in Thee”—not in himself, but in his God alone; who looks to Thee for help at all times, not only in great but in all lesser and all least emergencies. The Gospel writers speak of the same living trust: “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). C.—The latter clause is rather obscure, literally, “ways in their heart;” but the meaning appears to be, Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are the ways to Jerusalem, blessed are they whose hearts are full of one thought, that they are drawing nearer to God’s house. Cook.

6. This is one of the obscurest verses in the book. Interpreters, however, are now commonly agreed as to the first clause. The explanation of Baca, as meaning the valley of mulberry or Baca-trees, is now very commonly abandoned for the one given in the ancient versions, the vale of weeping or of sorrow, a beautiful poetical description of the present life as one of suffering. To the fons lacrymarum is opposed the fountain of salvation or of joy, a figure so familiar in the Scriptures, as to be readily suggested by the one word spring or fountain. The meaning of the clause, as thus explained, is, that the persons pronounced happy in the foregoing verse convert the very vale of tears into a fountain of delight. A.—The words are a figurative expression of the thought that the Divine blessing accompanies them everywhere, and supplies the means by which they are refreshed on their journey, and so strengthened that they become neither faint nor languid, but even stronger as they advance. The valley through which they are advancing becomes green meadows and pastures, and fruitful fields, by springs and rain. Moll.

The vale of weeping. The meaning of the word “Baca” is doubtful, but all the ancient versions render it by “weeping,” and according to the Masora it is the same as “Bacah,” weeping. The meaning of the verse is, that the faith and hope and joy of the pilgrims make the sandy waste a place of fountains, and then (this is the Divine side of the picture) God from heaven sends down the rain of His grace. The word denotes the soft, gentle autumnal rain which fell after the crops were sown. Thus the vale of weeping becomes a vale of joy. P.

Deep beneath all the surface agitations of storms and currents there may be the unmoved stillness of the central ocean of peace in our hearts. In the “valley of weeping” we may still be “blessed” if “the ways” are in our hearts, and if we make of the very tears “a well,” drawing refreshment from the very trials. With all its sorrows and pains, its fightings and fears, its tribulations in the world, and its chastenings from a father’s hand, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and the joy of the Lord remains with His servants. A. M.

6,7. The most gloomy present becomes bright to them; passing through even a terrible wilderness, they turn it into a place of springs, their joyous hope and the infinite beauty of the goal, which is worth any amount of toil and trouble, afford them enlivening comfort, refreshing, strengthening in the midst of the arid steppe. Not only does their faith bring forth water out of the sand and rocks of the desert, but God also on His part lovingly anticipates their love, and rewardingly anticipates their faithfulness; a gentle rain, like that which refreshes the sown fields in the autumn, descends from above and enwraps the valley of Baca in a fulness of blessing, the arid steppe becomes resplendent with a flowery festive garment, not to outward appearance, but to them spiritually in a manner none the less true and real. And whereas under ordinary circumstances the strength of the traveller diminishes in proportion as he has traversed more and more of his toilsome road, with them it is the very reverse; “they go from strength to strength.” D.

Troubles of the world hinder us not from approaching the presence of God. They are rather helps, for by this means we go from strength to strength, from strength of patience, to strength of hope; from strength of hope, to strength of faith, to strength of vision. R. Baker.—It is familiar how bereavements, which are the storms of the soul, prepare the way for religious tranquillity. The majority of trusting disciples were made so under the rough handling of some kind of pain. They had to march, weeping, blinded, through the dry valley of Baca, to find it at last “a well” of living water, and, going from strength to strength, to appear in Zion before God. Resignation is rest; and, to know it, the heart has to be torn by terrible separations—writhing at the new-made grave, heavy among the ruins of fortune, broken over disappointed plans, or unreturned affections. It is humiliating, but real. Tempests must sweep our sky, before the air is still and the summer sunshine calls up the noiseless energies of life. Ask the ministers, the Church records, the secret thanksgivings that rise around the communion-table. They will tell you, as One greater than they told you long before, that crosses bring calmness, that afflictions yield afterward the peaceable fruits of righteousness, that the rough, sharp mountains, hard to climb, bring peace; and that the Sabbath temple, the Lord’s great house of rest, into which the toilsome nations flow to praise, is built upon their top. F. D. H.

Many think themselves to be truly God-fearing when they call this world a valley of tears. But I believe they would be more so, if they called it a happy valley. God is more pleased with those who think everything right in the world than with those who think nothing right. With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment? Jean Paul.

7. The thought is that every one who with true heart presents himself before God in Zion advances from one stage of spiritual strength to another. It is a way of soul-progress, analogous to the progress made in the journey from one stage to another. C.—God makes everything gradual to us, and by present faith everything leading on gently and without violence to the next duty; like the changes of the seasons, imperceptible in their progress from day to day, yet perfect and complete; impossible to bear if they come suddenly, but healthful and delightful in their quiet approaches, and gliding gradually into one another. So duties grow out of duties gradually and gently, and Christian graces and self-denials glide into one another like the braids of a silken chain; and by this chain of love and duty the soul is bound about and strengthened in and for Christ. Cheever.

This is the method of life with all of us. Every acquisition is the ground of future conquest. Every gain is only the hope of future gain. “And thus the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.” “Till we all come to the stature of the perfect man in Christ Jesus.” To this the individual, to this the race, shall come. In that future world to which our life is hastening there will be scope for every development. Thither our footsteps and our best ambitions turn; and surely, even in a “strange land,” the going with weariness from strength to strength will be compensated by such a home. E. P. Hood.

Appeareth before God. This is a standing phrase to denote the approach of the worshipper to the temple of the Lord. The road to the temple from the distant parts of the country was long and taxing to the strength of the pilgrim. It symbolized the path of life, which terminates in the presence of God. And the refreshment which the pilgrim receives at the various stages of the way recruits and augments his strength, so that he is ever becoming better fitted for advancing to the end of his journey. M.

The whole bands are assembled—young and old, weak and strong; all answer to their names, and testify to the goodness of the Lord in bearing them up, and bringing through—in affording them rest, and yielding them pleasure. So shall it ever be with true spiritual pilgrims. The grace of God will always prove sufficient to preserve them, safe and blameless, to His heavenly kingdom and glory; troubles shall not overwhelm them, temptations not wholly overcome them, spiritual enemies shall not destroy them. They are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Their names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, and the Lamb Himself shall see to it that each of them is found in the day of account. Then shall He be able to say, “Those whom thou hast given Me I have kept, and none of them is lost.” “They are all here before God.” W. Makelvie.—There they shall rest in security, no more danger, no more doubt, no more conflict, because no more sin. Grace triumphant, guilt removed, indwelling evil eradicated, nothing in habit left but good, and the law of a purified and heavenly nature, as well as the law of

God’s promise and covenant in Christ, securing an eternity and immutability of holiness. The song of triumph begun on earth enters into and becomes one with the hallelujahs of heaven. Cheever.

8. Having reached the goal of their journey, the company of pilgrims pour forth their heart in such expressions of prayer as we find in v. 8. D.—The temple was the place, its seasons of festival worship the time pre-eminently for prayer. This was their glory. Hence the emphasis of the verse before us. The pious worshipper is called on to pour out his soul in prayer to the Lord God of hosts, the God of Jacob; this name of the aged patriarch being specially suggestive of struggling, prevailing prayer.

9. This does not mean, Look, O God, upon our shield; but rather, Do Thou, O God, who art our shield, look on the face of Thine anointed, who is at once our king and thy servant. V. 11 shows that the Lord God is thought of as both “sun” and “shield,” the fountain of our light and the arm of our military defence. The prayer is that He would regard with merciful favor the king then on the throne of David, since the prosperity of the whole people hinged upon the Divine mercy toward him. The words are specially pertinent to be applied under the Gospel to Jesus, who fills the full idea of Israel’s king as the medium of all blessings to God’s people. C.

Christ is the way to the Father, and the Father’s way to us. His name is not a mere musical cadence to a prayer, or a customary close to a collect; but it is to be the Alpha of our prayer, and its Omega too. He is to be the substance as well as the commencement and end of every prayer; and it is because of what He has done that we can see a channel by which our prayers shall rise to Deity, and the blessing of Deity shall descend into the heart of humanity. Cumming.—We see God in Christ. God sees us in Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. We in Christ are reconciled to God. More and more may we learn to take up and urge, with all the energy of a self-ignoring faith, the cry, “Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Thine anointed.” And the evenness of our joy and the stability of our hope depend upon our keeping our gaze fixed immovably upon that one blessed object upon which the Father’s gaze is always fixed. A. J. Gordon.

10. Be a door-keeper; literally, “lie on the threshold,” or “busy one’s self on the threshold;” the lowest place, the meanest office in God’s house is a happiness and an honor beyond all that the world has to offer. P.—“Be a door-keeper,” seems to mean precisely, be on the threshold, perhaps waiting for admittance, or having only the privilege of glances at the glories within; yet even this I choose before dwelling in the tents of wickedness, with all their luxuries and surroundings. C.

11. For a sun and a shield is Jehovah, God; grace and glory will Jehovah give; He will not refuse (anything) good to those walking in a perfect (way). The for shows that this verse gives a reason for the preference expressed in that before it. God is here called a sun, as He is called a light in Psalm 27: 1. Both these figures represent Him as a source of happiness; that of a shield describes Him as a source of safety, or a strong protector. Grace and glory (or honor) are related as the cause and the effect. The latter includes all the sensible fruits and manifestations of the Divine favor. A.

This is the only instance in which God is directly called a sun in Holy Scripture. He is called a shield, as being the One who so protects men that they cannot be approached, and a sun, as being the One dwelling in inaccessible light, which, proceeding forth from Him in love to men, specializes itself into the mild and condescending grace and glory of the Father of lights. The highest good is self-communicative. The God of salvation does not withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly. Out of His fulness of what is good He freely bestows upon all susceptible ones, i.e., upon all who are willing to receive and capable of receiving. D.

“Sun and shield,” dispelling all darkness; supplying all light, warmth, fertility, beauty, everything we need and love that is better than eternal frost and endless night. Our “shield,” protecting us evermore from all enemies and guaranteeing our perpetual safety. “Will give grace and glory,” grace here and glory hereafter; spiritual aid and power against all earthly want through all life’s struggles; but the glory of heaven in the eternal future. It is everything to say of Him that He will withhold no good thing from those who sincerely labor to please Him, evermore ordering their way uprightly. C.

The Lord God is a sun conveys a striking and impressive truth, when we think of the sun only in his obvious character as a source of light and heat. But what new energy is given to this magnificent emblem, when we learn from astronomy that He is a grand centre of attraction, and when we, in addition, take in that sublime generalization that the sun is the ultimate source of every form of power existing in the world! What an emblem of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being! W. H. G.—“I am God all-sufficient” (as He said to Abraham)—sufficient for Himself and for all others. Like His emblem, the sun, He has a fulness of light in Himself. Were a thousand million more creatures to crowd the earth, that sun has light and heat for them all; and in God there is a fulness of good infinitely greater than the whole creation or the most capacious of His creatures can require. Hamilton.

Will give grace. There is grace in the origin and grace in the execution of the plan of substitutionary atonement; and when the atonement has been made, there is grace in the bestowment, on account of it, of all the blessings, commencing with pardon, of everlasting salvation. Beginning, middle, and end, from eternity to eternity, all is grace. Christ Himself is God’s unspeakable gift, and eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace provides the atonement, and grace, as free as ever, bestows its results! R. Wardlaw.—In its wider and its narrower sense, Grace is His gift. The whole economy of redemption—the incarnation of the Divine Son, His perfect teaching, His sinless example, His expiatory death, His rising from the grave, His ascension on high, His perpetual pleading in that world beyond the stars—whence is all this but from the free, undeserved bounty of the infinite mercy thus lavished upon us, the children of the Fall? And Grace, in the specific sense of the action of the Holy Spirit, by whom the heart is filled with light and love, and whose work especially it is to knit our frail and perishing nature to the Divine humanity of the Saviour—what is grace in this narrower sense but a free gift from first to last? Assuredly, if there be aught good in us, grace has made us what we are. Liddon.

With pardon for sin and the Divine righteousness going with it is the pledge of continuous grace, assured protection, and final victory. God is ever consistent in His purpose, which is to overcome sin in us; and righteous in His character, which never claims anything that we are not reasonably able to perform. Christ died for our sins that we might die unto them. Therefore, we are told to reckon ourselves “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Be sure that whatever we need for holiness and victory God has for us in Christ. Thorold.

The grace we are encouraged to ask is grace for present need, and not present grace for future supposed necessities. Grace to suffer is for a suffering season; grace to die is for dying moments; then, but not before, is the time of need. Grace for present duty or trial ought to be the immediate object of our care; grace proportioned to our present necessity; either to subdue our corruptions, to resist temptations, to support us under the afflictions we feel, or to strengthen us for the duties we are called to perform. R. Walker.

Grace doth not lie as a sleepy habit in the soul, but will put forth itself in vigorous and glorious actings. Grace can no more be concealed than fire; like new wine, it will have vent. Grace doth not lie in the heart as a stone in the earth, but as seed in the earth; it will spring up into good works. T. Watson.

The Lord will give glory. “Man,” says a wise author, “is the glory of this lower world; the soul is the glory of man; grace is the glory of the soul; and heaven is the glory of grace.” Heaven, or glory, is grace matured and brought to infinite perfection; there we shall see His face and have His name written in our foreheads; and we shall reign with Him forever and ever. Matthew Wilks.—I know that Christ Jesus hath prepared room for me. Why may I not, then, with boldness in His blood, step into that glory into which my Head and Lord hath gone before me? The greater sinner I have been, the greater glory will be Thy grace to me unto all eternity. John Welsh.

When the personal, positive and eternal power and glory of Christ are revealed, Christian experience becomes as normal and spontaneous as is the response of the earth to the vernal sunshine. Prayer and praise become our natural speech, and fruit-bearing our natural condition, just as June brings the bird-song to the air and the flowers to the field. If we yield to the grace and truth of Christ, life becomes beautiful; death, too, beautiful, for it brings us immortality. It will introduce us to the open vision of our Lord. R. S. S.

What a solemn and sublime thought it is that a Christian carries through this world in his heart no smaller possession than the productive seed, which only needs its natural climate and its fostering skies to burst into the unfading flower of endless and perfect glory! Ah! brethren, the truths that people nowadays are sometimes flinging in our faces, as if we did not believe them, such as, “Here or nowhere must a man find his heaven; a man’s blessedness consists not in where he is, but in what he is; heaven must be within a man, and not merely round about him”—all these half-truths, where did they come from? They come from that truth that the Spirit of God in us is the earnest of heaven for us; and he that begins to love, and trust, and rejoice in God here, carries the essence of heaven wheresoever he goes. A. M.

The Lord will give grace and glory. Grace signifies both the good-will of God toward us and the good work of God in us; glory signifies both the honor which He now puts upon us in giving us the adoption of sons, and that which He has prepared for us in the inheritance of sons. God will give them grace in this world as a preparation for glory, and glory in the other world as the perfection of grace; both are God’s gift, His free gift. And as, on the one hand, wherever God gives grace He will give glory (for grace is glory begun, and is an earnest of it), so, on the other hand, He will give glory hereafter to none to whom He does not give grace now, or who receive His grace in vain. And if God will give grace and glory, which are the two great things that concur to make us happy in both worlds, we may be sure that no good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly. H.

Great grace and small gifts are better than great gifts and no grace. The Psalmist does not say, “The Lord gives gifts and glory,” but “grace and glory.” Grace, not gifts, is a certain forerunner of glory. Bunyan.—Grace is glory militant, and glory is grace triumphant; grace is glory begun, glory is grace made perfect; grace is the first degree of glory, glory is the highest degree of grace. Dyer.—Grace and glory differ, but as the bud and the blossom. What is grace but glory begun? What is glory but grace perfected? J. Mason.—The kingdom of grace is the kingdom of glory in commencement; and the kingdom of glory is the kingdom of grace in full, yet ever-growing perfection. Bishop Jebb.

These two kingdoms of grace and glory differ not specifically, but gradually; they differ not in nature, but only in degree. The kingdom of grace is nothing but the inchoation or beginning of the kingdom of glory; the kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the kingdom of glory is grace in the flower; the kingdom of grace is glory in the daybreak, and the kingdom of glory is grace in the full meridian; the kingdom of grace is glory militant, and the kingdom of glory is grace triumphant. There is such an inseparable connection between these two kingdoms, grace and glory, that there is no passing into the one kingdom but by the other. At Athens there were two temples, a temple of virtue and a temple of honor; and there was no going into the temple of honor but through the temple of virtue; so the kingdoms of glory and grace are so joined together that we cannot go into the kingdom of glory but through the kingdom of grace. Many people aspire after the kingdom of glory, but never look after grace; but these two, which God hath joined together, may not be put asunder; the kingdom of grace leads to the kingdom of glory. T. Watson.

No good will He withhold. Many have lost for God, but none ever lost by God. If they have lost in temporals, they have been eternal gainers. There is a sure rule, God never takes anything from His people, but He gives them something better in the stead of it. J. Mason.

God oftentimes withholds riches and honors, and health of body from men, though they walk never so uprightly; we may therefore know that honors and riches and bodily strength are none of God’s good things; they are of the number of things indifferent which God bestows promiscuously upon the just and unjust, as the rain to fall and the sun to shine. The good things of God are chiefly peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost in this life; fruition of God’s presence and vision of His blessed face in the next, and these good things God never withholds from the godly. R. Baker.

Walk uprightly. Among strong, upright and beautiful characters that we have known, none are so strong, so upright, and so beautiful as those where the graces grow on the firm stock of obedience. Goodness is never very good, tenderness is not nobly tender, unless there is conscience under it, principle in it. Fetch back the old Hebrew and Puritanic idea of allegiance and you restore some nobilities that we can ill afford to spare. F. D. H.

Whole Verse. The sun denotes all manner of excellency, provision, and prosperity, and the shield represents all manner of protection whatsoever; under the name of grace all spiritual good is wrapped up, and under the name of glory all eternal good is wrapped up; under the last clause of the verse, no good thing will He withhold, is wrapped up all temporal good; and all put together declare God to be indeed an all-sufficient portion. T. Brooks.

Such a promise as this is simple and clear as light. It needs not so much exposition as belief and application. It is not the promise of one blessing, but of all. It does not so much say what God will do, as declare that there is nothing which He will not do. The Lord God is a sun and shield; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. Whatever there is in God of help and comfort is herein made over to the believer through Christ Jesus. It contains provision for body and for soul, in life, in death, and in eternity. It covers every instance, addresses itself to every character, and meets every emergency. Resting on the veracity of Jehovah, it needs no proof. Rising beyond all qualification and exception, it requires no elaborate command. J. W. A.—In God’s perfections, in His assurances and promises, there is enough to content the most longing soul, and to fill with a joy unspeakable and full of glorying. Hamilton.

12. And the Psalmist rises at last to the joyful conviction, not only that they are blessed who dwell in God’s house (v. 4), or they who swell the festai throng on their way to that house (v. 5), but they who, whether they worship in it or not, are one with Him by faith: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.” P.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee. Here is the key of the Psalm. The worship is that of faith, and the blessedness is peculiar to believers. No formal worshipper can enter into this secret. A man must know the Lord by the life of real faith, or he can have no true rejoicing in the Lord’s worship, His house, His Son, or His ways. S.

Christianity has its specially sacred day, sacred places, and sacred meal; still such is its transforming power that it converts all the days of the week into a Sunday or Sabbath, and every place under the canopy of heaven into a place of worship, and every meal into a sacrament. The whole earth is duly consecrated by the Lord and Bishop of souls. J. H. Jones.

He that will meet the king must wait on Him in His walks. Christ’s ordinances are Christ’s walks; and he that would see the beauty of Christ, and taste of the sweetness of Christ, must wait at wisdom’s door, must attend Christ in His own appointments and institutions. When old Barzillai had lost his taste and hearing, he cared not for David’s feasts and music; so there are many who, having lost their spiritual taste and hearing, care not for Gospel ordinances. Under a pretence of living above ordinances, they live below ordinances; yea, they scorn, vilify, and contemn Christ’s ordinances, that are more worth than heaven and earth. T. Brooks.

How many persons go to church who never

go to God! How many sing hymns and never praise, hear truths and never heed, touch promises and never pray! H. S. Carpenter.—The man who sees most of God in nature and comes closest to Him among the mountains and out under the stars will be he who has first felt the strange presence of His Spirit at the altar. Esthetic exhilaration must not be confounded with devout communion. Nowhere is the pres-

ence and glory of God in earth, sea, and heavens so sublimely celebrated as in the Psalms; and nowhere else are more fervid eulogies pronounced upon the sanctuary of God and the courts of the Lord’s house. C. H. P.