Psalms 36

Psalms 36:1-12

The alienation of the wicked from God contrasted with Him in whom the sons of men take refuge. To the chief musician: [a psalm] of David, the servant of Jehovah. The thirty-sixth psalm is a yet more simple one. It is by David, specially marked here as the servant of Jehovah," looking at the condition of those who refuse that pleasant service, and putting in contrast with their infatuation the blessedness of those who find their refuge and satisfaction in His abundant goodness. The last three verses pray for the continuance of this blessedness, and foresee the casting down of the wicked, without power to rise again. There are twelve verses to the psalm, but quite exceptional in their division as such; nor can I at present give any reason for this.

1. Four verses give us the complete description of the wicked: Godward, self-ward, in his words, and in his ways. His revolt -his lawlessness -is (literally) as a divine utterance, an oracle, within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. And as, where God is hidden, we may be sure it is self that hides Him, so it is that with the poorest flattery that can be, he flattereth himself; to find surely at last the evil of his success, and the iniquity he has loved, to be really hateful. His words, which are here, as always, the index of the heart, are necessarily therefore vanity and deceit. The wisdom that has become discredited with him he has left off, and with it the well-doing which is its sure accompaniment, and assurance for what it is. The folly he has planned upon his bed -at the very time when naturally there would be most sobriety -he carries out in a way that is not good, but which is good to him, for “he abhorreth not evil.” There the description ends: the principles are given of his life; all else would be only detail.
2. All this is the result of departure from God; the psalmist, therefore, turns now to speak of God -this God from whom men depart. What is He, that they should do this? do it so simply and naturally, as a thing of course? God! His mercy is in the heavens, -that is, the bounteous goodness which, for Him, is but what His relationship to His creatures implies, and which sun and moon in the heavens preach of daily. His mercy is His faithfulness, firmer than, while expressed in, those laws which bind those glowing orbs to their constant and beneficent circuit.

The mountains and the deep, again, speak variously of His stable righteousness and His judgments which are deep -no wonder: for the care of the whole earth is His; man and beast both He blesses and preserves. But for the sons of men alone there is nearer intimacy, the shadow of fostering wings under which they take refuge, blessed and blessing Him who has thus brought them nigh. With the provision of His house He satisfies them, -the world being but this for those who realize His gracious presence in it, His government of it, the treasures with which He has filled it. He makes them to drink of the river of His own pleasures, lifting them up thus to communion with Himself. For with Him is the fountain of creature life; and the light which gives light as to everything is from Himself alone. 3. In the sense of all this, the psalmist commits himself, and all with whom he is linked, to God. He prays for the continuance of this bounteous mercy to those who know Him, and His righteousness to the upright. In the necessary conflict with evil, he prays for deliverance from the foot of pride and the hand of the wicked. And he foresees the necessary collapse of the workers of vanity; an overthrow as complete as final.