Bible Commentaries

The Instinct After Rising

Psalm 97:10

Why is it that the study of human life in the Bible is so striking and helpful? Is it not because, as we close the book, we cannot help forming a moral judgment of the man himself? Take, for example, the life of Saul. We do not pass judgment upon him as a warrior or as a great leader, but we pass judgment upon Saul as a whole. David did much darker deeds than ever Saul did, and yet our judgment on the whole is in favour of David and against Saul. Why is it that, on the whole, we regard the life of Saul as the life of a man who has failed? Is it not because, underneath all his brilliant achievements, we cannot help noticing a moral deterioration?

I. The truth is that Holy Scripture teaches us that the outcome and the end of life is not what a man has done, or what a man has said, but it is what life has made of the man. Not so much what man has made of the life, but what life has made of the man. Life is a machinery with its complicated system for the working out of character, and at the end the soul comes out beaten upon by all the manifold forces and influences of life; the soul comes out of all those forces which baffle analysis, and there is your man. Holy Scripture says that the outcome of life is the formation of character, and that, compared with this, nothing else in the world matters.

Now we feel this, I think, when we see a young Psalm 97:11

Consider these words as speaking: (1) Of the future of the believer; (2) of the life of the believer in this present time; (3) as prophetic of the death and resurrection of Christ.

In applying the words "Light is sown for the righteous" to the future of the believer, I am but following the thought of the Psalmist and the principle contained in the figure which he employs.

I. This world is the seedtime: the harvest is in the world to come: in other words, the prosperity of the righteous is future. The believer has light now, but it is only sown. The promised immortality is but the full unveiling of that sun by whose clouded light the believer walks on earth.

II. The expression "Light is sown for the righteous" is figurative of the spiritual life of the believer in this present time. The idea of "sown light," or light diffused and scattered abroad, is common to poets in all ages. It is used by both Virgil and Lucretius. The latter says:—

And the sun from mid-heaven sheds his heat

On every side, and sows the fields with light.

While our own Milton adopts the same figure—

Now morn her rosy steps in the Eastern clime

Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl.

What is night, but the turning of the earth on its axis from the sun? What is day, but the turning of the earth towards the source of light? What is spiritual darkness, but the turning of the heart from God? What is conversion, but the turning of the soul towards the "Light of the world"? From the moment that the day breaks and the Sun of Righteousness dawns upon the soul, light is strewn upon life's way: so that the righteous man advances step by step in the light. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Progressiveness is the law of spiritual growth. "First the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear."

III. The sentence "Light is sown for the righteous" is, I believe, prophetic of Christ. In the Prayer Book version the words are rendered, "There is sprung up a Light for the righteous". Was He not the Light? Was He not sown? sown in the darkness of the grave? "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Whilst the Light was hidden in the sepulchre the disciples were sad. It was but sown. After His resurrection the Sun of Righteousness scaled the heavens, and now shines with healing in His wings.

—J. W. Bardsley, Many Mansions, p251.

References.—XCVII:11.—M. Biggs, Practical Sermons on Old Testament Subjects, p209. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No836. XCVII.—B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, p41. XCVII.—International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p305. XCVIII—Ibid. vol. ii. p307.