Psalms 19

Series 2. (Psalms 19:1-14; Psalms 20:1-9; Psalms 21:1-13.) Faith embracing the testimony of God, and laying hold upon Christ’s salvation. The second series accordingly manifests at once a different character from the former one. Christ is no longer in it the speaker; nor in the nineteenth psalm even the subject. We have instead creation and the law, the great testimonies of God before Christ came, -though these had, surely, Christ in view, and were intended to lead on to Him. Thus the twentieth and twenty-first psalms following complete the divine testimony with the witness of Christ Himself in His work and its consequences for men. The real depth of the atoning work remains indeed to be explored in the well-known psalm which follows; but we have here His work as sacrificial, and the result in some sense for the faith that accepts it. In this section we have therefore “faith embracing the testimony of God, and laying hold of Christ’s salvation.”

Psalms 19:1-14

The power of creation and of the law. To the chief musician: a psalm of David. The nineteenth psalm gives us, then, the prior witness before Christ came, but which faith realizes as what the apostle calls the law, -the “word of the beginning of Christ.” (Hebrews 6:1, marg.) If the knowledge of the new man is that “Christ is all,” (Colossians 3:10-11,) then He must be found in creation and law alike, or these must be thrown aside as unworthy of contemplation or regard. And in fact with the many this seems to have been very much the case; the retribution having now come -who can wonder? -in the one falling into the hands of the higher critic for exposition, the other into those of the Darwinian evolutionist. Scripture has not the responsibility of this, we may be sure; and our only hope is in coming back to Scripture.

1. Even the creed, which has been long called the apostles’, and which, though not that, has expressed since the ninth century the faith of the western church, -nay, the Nicene, five centuries earlier, and put forth to maintain the divine glory of Christ, -both of these ascribe the work of creation only to the Father. The apostle Paul, on the other hand, declares of the Son, that “all things were created by Him, and for Him,” (Colossians 1:16); and the apostle John, that “by Him,” as the “Word of God,” the Revealer, “all things were made; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3.) Thus if “the expanse telleth the work of His hands,” we may well expect it not to be silent as to Him in whose Person only there has been full revelation made of God. And it is not silent: for the very orb that brings the day is, as we have long since learned, His symbol; and the night is constituted by the absence of this. Creation is the earliest witness of God to man, though, as soon as man fell, he had need of, and in the mercy of God found, addition to it. If men turned their back on that, or corrupted it with their own folly, the witness of creation still remained, and they could not silence this. “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead: so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20.) Here it is the heavens alone that are brought forward in testimony, -those heavens so suggestive of infinity and power, to which in their paths the stars move in orderly subjection. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” -El, “the Mighty”; “and the expanse telleth the work of His hands.” The testimony is continuous and progressive. One day adds its tale to that of another, and one night likewise to that which is gone before it. Never exhausted, the story never ends. The day with its multitudinous voices, subdued each by the very multitude of them, is like a river of speech flowing on continuously: while the night, with its quiet breathing, speaks in the hush perhaps more intelligibly to the more attentive ear. Speech, then, the psalmist ascribes to creation; and he is earnest about it: he would have us know that he means fully what he says. It is “speech” and it is “words,” he says, -really that: words, in spite of the sneer of the skeptic, -in spite of the dullness of the people of God themselves, -words really to be heard by those that listen for them. A poor, flat, unprofitable thing to say, affirms the higher critic of the day: out with it! what use in letting us know that words have meaning?* But, indeed, there is signal use in insisting upon that which, after all, is so feebly realized, or even understood. Granted there is something known as “natural theology” which students of divinity are supposed to study, and a few others know something about, -how much does the average Christian hear of this continual witness to God of the multitudinous voices of the day and night? How far are the natural sciences converted to God today? Still more must we ask, how far are they Christianized? What another thing would our lives be, if this were so!
   True, the language here is parabolic: as such the Lord used it; in this way He took up nature, without apology, -sometimes without explanation. And when on a certain occasion He had done this, and the disciples appealed to Him for explanation, He rebuked them for their need of it. “Know ye not this parable?” He asked: “and how, then, will ye know all parables?” (Mark 4:13.) Wonderful words, which show what He expects from us! -which show also what a wealth of understanding may be ours. If nature be in this way the very realm of parables, how then should nature lie open to us throughout its wide extent! How familiar, after all the centuries of acquaintance with it, should its voices sound to us! But, if we will not let Christ be the Teacher of natural things to us, it is not hard to prophesy who will slip into His seat, and teach us. For the strife between Christ and the devil allows of no neutrality: that which is not for Christ is against Him; the unoccupied ground grows weeds and thorns and briars. Nature itself may teach us things like these. Let us take the shame, then, of needing so simple a thing to be enforced, as that nature’s speech is intended to be heard. As the universal witness, its doctrine is not intended to be esoteric, but for all. As a matter of fact, perverted though it be, the speech of all people is in nature’s words. The rudest and the simplest use most its picture-signs. “Their line is gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.”
   Across these heavens, from his chamber in the ends of them, goes forth the unfailing sun; in perpetual vigor, spreading around the joy which is associated with his presence: for “a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun.” His seems indeed the joy of strength, -the joy that springs out of realized competency. Always filling his place, -always full-orbed, -always the centre of light, though the clouds of earth may gather and shut him in, -always the centre of warmth, though the winter may build up its barrier of frost against him, -darkness and cold and death the sure result of his absence: if this be a parable then, is there any possible way but one in which to interpret it? Or does Scripture fail to reveal its meaning? The Bridegroom coming forth of His chamber, who is at the same time the “Sun of righteousness” that “shall arise with healing in His wings,” source of light, of life, of fruitfulness, to the whole earth rejoicing in His beams: shall we look at this picture and yet find Theism indeed, but not Christology, in nature’s lessons? Or shall we speak slightingly of “parables” as after all merely the ingenious play of fancy, brilliant perhaps but unreal, not rooted in the nature of things? able to give, therefore, no deep, true, (if you will,) scientific glance into that nature? Nay: this is their real spiritual equivalent, and spirit is the essence of things, and gives the law of external nature. As it is said of Israel’s history, that “all these things happened unto them for types,” so it is true of nature that all these things are arranged and ordered so that it should be the true reflection of the glory of God; -so that its voices should tell Him forth. And instead of being unscientific, to follow this out would give us truest science, would relieve us of much that causes sorest perplexity, would bring the material and spiritual into perfect reconciliation, and God into everything that He has made. Is this to be desired?

It is the one thing which gives all knowledge value. It is that which alone can establish science itself; nay, lift it up into the sphere of the eternal! It will be its immeasurable exaltation. Finally, it will make our Bible the unifier and key of every kind of knowledge, and Christ, in result, the sum of it. Is this, Christian reader, a thing desirable? Is it to you a thing credible?

It is that of which the apostle assures us, that the knowledge of the “new man,” “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him,” is that “Christ is ALL, and in all.” (Colossians 3:10-11.) If this were apprehended, how would our minds be opened and enlarged to take in truth by every avenue open to us! What a guide should we have in those depths unexplorable by mere human intellect, -“the Spirit” that “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10.) What a standard by which to judge of all the principles of science! What a confirmation of each by each as these two witnesses (His word and work) were brought into one harmonious testimony! What a satisfaction of the desires of the heart that pants after God! Not in vain, then, has the psalmist put into his contemplation of the heavens this picture of the Ruler of the Day, this glorious source of energy for the earth, as the science of the time would not hesitate to speak of it. In doing this, he has but been preaching Christ to us from a text broad writ in the heavens. And it is sweet to turn back from this to the first chapter of Genesis, and to see how the books of nature and of Scripture begin together thus with the unfolding of Christ! The “light” of the first day, (which God is, in its spiritual significance,) put, on the fourth, upon its material candlestick, as the Old Testament revelation of God, becomes for us in the New the glory of the Only-begotten in the Man Christ Jesus. And here is what may assure us of the science of Moses, that it is sealed thus with the seal of the King of kings. Christ is in it, a living picture, a likeness speaking for itself as drawn by the Author of nature Himself, and so really still, day by day, pouring forth speech. Moses has only been the scribe recording this utterance; but a faithful one. Service is blessed work when it is true, and Christ least of all disdains this character of Servant. In the fifth verse we see Him as this, keeping to His God-ordained course, His “circuit,” which brings Him back to be in His place in the morning, the earth’s timekeeper, as all else. Look but a little deeper, this may seem all upset: it is the earth that is turning upon itself, even while it circles around him; and this only establishes the true relation, after all, between the soul and Christ: to Him it owes its obedience, and revolves around Him, and fidelity to Him is the path in which we find Him, “faithful and true.” Yet after all, the first thought was not untrue, -in some sense it was the truest. The tie between the earth and sun is mutual, as the law of gravity assures us, strongest upon the sun’s side, which continually pours out upon the earth its fructifying light and heat, “nothing hid from the heat thereof.” The “less is blessed of the better.” Servant of God for us, Servant even to us in His love, this and His Lordship are not opposed or contrary in the Christ of God. While all our changes, (which, without due self-knowledge, may seem His,) all that they make known of us, do but approve His faithfulness to the ordained path of perfect wisdom and right government. This is, of course, but an illustration, -a typical example of nature’s teaching. It is all we can expect in this place. We are now to listen to another testimony. 2. Creation bears witness to God,who as Creator knows no difference of nations or of classes. Jew and Gentile are equal in His eyes, and men as a whole “His offspring.” But they -not He -have got away from this. Hence, even in the interests of men at large, the call of Israel out from the nations, to be the conservator of truth from which on all sides they had departed, otherwise destined to be lost out of the world. Hence her necessary isolation, while yet in the centre of the great lines of the world’s traffic: like one of her own cities of refuge, with its roads kept open on every side, and its safe keeping for the man who fled to it. Israel’s law was thus a testimony to Jehovah, Israel’s God; who is of course also the Creator, the God of all, but driven, as it were, by the unbelief of men, into this exceptional place. Thus it is that with Israel alone is found the pure record of creation itself; which we find in Assyria and Babylonia overlaid with the perversions of men turning from the truth, and given up to fables. Abundant evidence is there in the comparison of these, that in the beginning the account was one, and that thus the truth they had, which they had given up. “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Israel were in themselves no better, and not because of any betterness in them did God take them up. Among them also, if the truth were found, it was found in continual strife with the evil and unbelief of man. If it were maintained, it was maintained with a strong hand which chastened for iniquity. Their history is, as Moses testified against them, that of a stiff-necked and disobedient people; and to our own day what else has been the history of the professing people of God? But He had in His heart purposes of love to man that must be fulfilled, which the ages slowly, because everything should be written large and fully before the eyes of the universe, and fixed on the tablets of eternal remembrance, -slowly indeed, yet continuously, were to work out. Israel in those purposes were the elect of God; and Jehovah, His covenant name with them, throws up, as a rampart against the power of evil, the pledge of His immutability and truth. His law is thus inflexible, as founded upon the holiness of His nature, and yet wedded indissolubly to these purposes of His grace. If it condemned and humbled, it was yet a “ministration” -a ministry of love in doing this, -a " ministration of death" and “of condemnation.” (2 Corinthians 3:7; 2 Corinthians 3:9.) In itself “holy, just, and good,” it was the delight of the renewed nature. But the effect was, on this very account, the humbling of man before God, the abasement of all self-righteousness, and thus in the end the preparation for the gospel of salvation. The testimony of the law has then its right place just here in this nineteenth psalm, where it is found; and found in this double character also, as testimony to the holiness of God, and so searching the heart before God. In the next psalm we go on to the salvation for the reception of which the way is thus prepared. “The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul”: converting," in the broader sense of the word, would not be wrong, -that is, turning it from any wrong path. Torah, “the law,” means literally that which points out the way; and as “perfect” it is an infallible guide. Its certainty for guidance is therefore what is here declared. The soul as the impulsive part of man’s nature is that which needs to be turned or restrained from following its own inclinations, and so is named here. How blessed to have the certainty which is found in listening to God’s voice. It is the first point of all, clearly, for blessing.

Apart from this, wisdom and folly, holiness and unholiness, are names, and nothing else. We seek to please God, and know not but we offend Him. The road we take to heaven may, after all, be the road to hell: for “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12.) When God has spoken, and we have heard His voice, our path then becomes that of simple obedience; we are not left to prove it by results, which come all too late for help as to what is before us. Results, so far as these can be depended on even, testify but of what, being past, is already beyond recall. But in God’s path, -realizing that we are there, -results are in His hand. “The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth”; but the servant of God may be well assured that power is in His hand to carry out the purposes of unfailing wisdom. He may be at rest therefore. “Great peace have they that love Thy law, and nothing shall stumble them.” (Psalms 119:165, marg.) This is what, first of all, -priceless boon it is! -the law of the Lord secures: a heart at rest. One may not know the future; but he knows his present Guide: and the future can have no disappointment or surprise for Him who sees the end from the beginning. And to this the second part of the verse here corresponds. “The testimony of Jehovah” takes quite different ground from that of the “law.” Its appeal is not, as that of the latter, to authority, but to fact and truth; and “the testimony of Jehovah is sure,” beyond possibility of overthrow. His are the lips of truth: to Him who is the Omnipotent it is yet an impossibility to lie; day to day, night to night, gather a constantly increasing experience which proclaims His faithfulness. So that His testimony “maketh wise the simple” or inexperienced, with the wisdom of experience. Faith, then, is not credulity. It is not necessary to it to shut one’s eyes. He who is Light leads in the light.

Question, scrutinize, use every faculty that He has given: they shall not be put to shame; only o’erpassed, as finite by the Infinite, and blessed and drawn out by the very overpassing. Not a soul brought to God but the intellect expands as the heart does. Christ dwelling within must needs enlarge the place of His dwelling. His testimony received makes wise the simple. The next couplet speaks of moral discernment, putting a difference; but the terms used are not exactly what we are accustomed to, and need to be put together according to the parallelism, in order to be clearly seen. We have here on the one hand, not the law as a whole, but its “precepts,” -the details in which, with “line upon line,” the application of its principles is made to all the circumstances of daily life. These concrete forms more clearly show us the principles they embody, and the “commandment of Jehovah,” though not a plural, is only meant in this way to individualize more thoroughly the single precept. The precepts of Jehovah are right; the commandment of Jehovah is pure: thus we have now moral character. What connects itself with these respectively is that the right precepts “rejoice the heart,” the pure commandment “enlightens the eyes.” The parallelism is here thought to be maintained by the latter phrase being taken as indicating revival, refreshment, as when Jonathan tasted the honey in the wood, it is said that “his eyes were lightened.” The numerical structure seems to plead for a different meaning, and one more consonant perhaps with the parallelism itself, which should not be mere repetition but advance in significance. In Ephesians we find (Ephesians 1:18, R.V.) “having the eyes of your heart enlightened,” -an expression which connects the two parts of this together. The heart is indeed that which largely governs the eyes; and the joy of the heart in Jehovah’s precepts enables the eyes to discern aright. From the opposite of this all error, in fact, proceeds. In the third parallel, in harmony with its numerical significance, we come to the principle which underlies all this, which is “the fear of Jehovah” Himself, and which is “clean,” -frees from the defilement which forbids approach to or communion with Him. Thus it has the real elements of endurance in it: for the favor of God has that; what is in harmony with His mind abides. So also the judgments of Jehovah, to which the fear of Him causes us to cling, are truth; and thus, according to the primary meaning of the word, firm and stable. “They are righteous altogether”: and the righteous is an everlasting foundation." (Proverbs 10:25.) From all this comes the value that experience sets upon these divine words," more desirable than gold," -much of it and refined; and for enjoyment, sweeter to the taste than the purest honey, that which drops and is not pressed out of the comb. Conscience also is exercised by them: a thing which the true servant of God is able to appreciate. Happy is he who can invite the light of God’s word to search out all his heart, shunning no ray of it. The “reward” found is both one present and to come, -in that day when no reserve will be possible any longer. 3. The third and last section of the psalm is a prayer to God Himself, into whose presence the soul has thus been brought, to find itself naked and open to Eyes that see beyond all that the fullest self-consciousness can be aware of. And these inaccessible depths, what are they? What may appear in them, when the secrets of all hearts shall be exposed? Alas, it is not because of their profundity, but because of their tortuous labyrinths comes the difficulty -the impossibility -of exploration: “the heart is deceitful above all things . . . who can know it?” Our comfort, then, must be in turning away from ourselves to Him in whom we can have a confidence that in ourselves we cannot; and in the knowledge that He fully knows us, yet turns not from us because of what He knows. We can understand the joy of the woman of Samaria, who had found the Christ in Him who had told her all things she had done. But He had first opened to her the heart of God, and assured her of her welcome to Him. Grace had heralded the truth to her, and made her glad to have it told her. So here, with the conviction “who understandeth his errors?” the psalmist turns in confidence to God with the prayer, “Free me from things hidden from me.” Sins are not harmless because unknown. They are still sins, as witness the law of sacrifice. (Leviticus 4:2; Leviticus 4:13, etc.) The dust of a defiling world settles down on us silently, and the mirror of conscience is dulled ere we are aware. The basin and towel in the Lord’s hand (John 13:1-38) are requisite, not when we are conscious of evil merely, but because we are too little conscious. Hardening is not only by the open front of sin: for the Christian it is more generally through its deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:13.) Satan does not in general present himself as Satan, nor sin as sin; but the dress changes nothing of its character. Between sins of ignorance and presumptuous sins there is, of course, an immense difference. While all sin is, as already said, sin, and the want of knowledge can never justify us, with God’s word in our hand, and Himself so accessible for our enlightenment, yet a sin committed in real ignorance does not shut out God as a sin against conscience does. If it were so, communion would be impossible to any, short of practical perfection. But He is tender and merciful, and of infinite compassion. It would not be this to pass over that which argues a spirit of “revolt,” which trifles with His known will. Here, too, we must take care; for we may trifle with His will by refusing to seek the light, as well as by refusing to walk by it when we have it.

And this, one must fear, is the cause of many blighted lives among the children of God. They do not know, indeed, the evil paths they are in, but they have, nevertheless, as it were instinctively, turned from and refused the knowledge. Not willing to be disturbed, or to abide the cost of truth, they give up seeking it, -at least, in the dreaded line. But they cannot so escape from the consequences, terrible as some day they will find them, of real disobedience. We can find our safeguard only in the sanctuary. The Lord Himself is our constant necessity; and the self-distrust is wholesome that keeps us close to Him. So the cry here now: “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright; I shall be innocent of great revolt.” And the psalm ends with the longing desire for positive sanctification, -the acceptance of heart and mouth before God -this God, known in the power of His salvation ever (John 4:22), -“Jehovah, my Rock and my Redeemer.”