Bible Commentaries

A Mictham of David

Psalm 16:3). This is the communion of saints. This is the truly united church. Observe, the terms are themselves of a universal quality: "the saints," "the excellent;" the reference is to character, not to opinion, not to varied ways of looking at things which cannot be positively settled; the Psalmist dwells upon the eternal quantity—character, holiness, excellence, pureness;—these speak all languages, assume the hues of all climes, and under manifold outward diversity conceal an agreement subtle and undefinable as life itself. Who has discovered life?—who has taken it out with his dainty fingers and looked at it objectively? Yet it is everywhere—a spirit, a ghost, a mystery, giving its real value to everything, making a child valuable to the state, making the tiniest life a centre of sensitiveness—a possibility of agony. Did we look in this direction, we should lose all that is bitter in sectarianism, and cherish all that is good in the proper distribution of gift, and talent, and spiritual capacity. We should then belong to the Universal Church. Men are one, to a large extent, in worship. When they rise from their knees they begin, to contend with one another: then "pray without ceasing." This is the great gem which we have found in this golden treasury: a conception of humanity—new, gracious, inclusive.

"Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god" ( Psalm 16:4).

The word "hasten" comes from a root which signifies to buy a wife. The idea of the Psalmist, therefore, is—Their sorrows shall be multiplied that go out after idolatry,—which has again and again been associated with adultery in the whole of the Old Testament writings. "After another god." Where do we find the word "god" in the plural number? Opening the divine book we read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" and reading further on, we find the mysterious plural as used by the Eternal himself, signifying holy and inaccessible mysteries of being. But where is the word vulgarised and used as a term of temptation? Verily, in the grammar of the serpent. Said Psalm 16:5-9).

This is an appeal which is not only tenable, but graciously compulsory. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup"—literally, of my condition in life; I have nothing else;—but, as some commentator has said, how rich must he be who possesses the Possessor of all! "Thou maintainest my lot,"—not only thou directest me in general providence, for in that sense God holds the wicked in his power, but thou dost keep my lot for me; it is evermore in thy right hand; I am not put in trust with it, because some mishap might occur in this life of tumult, and strange and bewildering surprise; thou dost dispose the lot, and then keep it in thine own hands. So that the soul lives in continual nearness to the Father, within whisper-distance of him, so that communication can pass and repass, and the outer world not know when his signal has flamed in the heavens for the guidance of the dependent and adoring soul.

"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places" ( Psalm 16:6).

The land was marked out by lines, so that the inheritance began at this point and ended at that point; it was toward the rising of the sun, or toward the setting of the sun; or was near the river, or was far off among the hills; but it was an inheritance that "fell out," that belonged to the individual whose name was divinely associated with it; and the Psalmist says, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places." No matter where they are, for the whole land is pleasant. Is it not possible to think our inheritance the very best of all? The same blessed and comforting thought is felt in the family. What mother does not think her own children the very best?—admitting, as she may do, with a mother's reluctance, this drawback and that disadvantage; still, taking a certain view of the case, how her children stand up with attractions, in her judgment, not to be surpassed! So every man may deal with his inheritance. He may call it "a goodly heritage." Though some years there be little upon it, still the heritage is "goodly": the year before last the harvest was very abundant, and next year it may be more abundant still. The heritage is not to be blamed: the climate may be variable; all the transitory influences of the year may be more or less disappointing, but the heritage, the land, is moist with a divine blessing, living with a divine promise. He who takes this view of life—its cup, its lot, its heritage—has the contented mind which is a continual feast.

Now arises the advantage of connecting the Psalm with the period of history at which they were written. Many of these Psalm have their historical counterpart in the Books of Samuel. Referring to the history as given in those books, you will find that these exclamations on the part of the Psalmist are not the utterances of a rhapsodist. These are not terms in poetry, or phases of an imaginative life: the man who wrote all these words was not living in some lordly castle, whence he could survey velvet lawns, and mysterious landscapes, and fruitful gardens, and hear the singing of birds that lingered around the castle roof as if charmed by some subtle hospitality within; the man who wrote this psalm may be said to have written part of it upon the rock, to have finished the sentence in a cave, to have completed the eloquence when the air was rent by the cry of pursuing foes. In all such psalms the circumstances are the true commentaries. Enough for us to know at this moment that this man was not uttering a Sabbath-hymn in a church specially built for him, and protected as to all intrusion and unholy violence and trespass; he was writing in an unroofed church, or writing in a hidden den or cave. If trust in the living God will stand the test of such circumstances, he must be a bold man who can throw away the advantage of thus vitally associating himself with the living God.

How the ideas grow on the expanding mind of the harper! Not only does he see an outline of the Universal Church, but along with that, and almost consequent upon it, he sees an outline of Immortality. This is an idea which has been growing in the Old Testament. Now and again some word has been interjected into the story that did not seem to belong to it, or was of another quality—a word with a colour, a flush, as if light from an unknown source had struck upon it and lighted it up into new beauty. Job has said one or two words for the explanation of which we must wait; the Psalmist now speaks of his flesh resting in hope, of his soul not being left in the unseen place, and of the Holy One not seeing corruption. A beautiful threefold division, too, is coming into human language:—"My flesh," "my heart," "my soul,"—what more can the apostle say in his noble rapture but "body, soul, and spirit"? No fourth quality has been added. David, in whom was sleeping, according to the flesh, the Son of God, began to see a strange outlining of new possibilities of being. He is more than flesh, he is more than soul—he is flesh, soul, and heart; and because he has this conception of the inner nature he says, Surely the flesh shall share this glory somehow; I cannot tell in what manner, but "my flesh also shall rest in hope." As if to say, I cannot tell all that is in me; I am struggling to say something that will not be said, but I am alive, stirred, inflamed: oh that some prophet gifted with the genius of words could interpret me into speech! To impair the doctrine of immortality is to strike at the goodness of God. In denying immortality we may be said to deny the Creator. We cannot treat immortality as a doctrine only; it is really part of the divine nature. Given God, and immortality in some form is a necessity. Has he created us simply to let us die? Has he given us all these gifts merely to mock us at the last, by allowing us to drop into oblivion and nothingness? Does he permit us to climb to the very door of heaven, and to hear the songs that are sung inside, simply that he may thunder to us, You cannot have part or lot in this inheritance; your destiny is obliteration? Some argument must be founded upon instinct, impulse, yearning, longing, speechless unconsciousness. When we are all, body, soul, and spirit, lifting ourselves up to him, is it like him to deny the aspiration? or like him to give us that further movement which will connect us consciously with his own eternity? To this latter faith I incline. God has not created aspirations which he cannot satisfy. There is more in us than we can tell, and to these wordless impulses God sends this revelation of immortality.

The New Testament use of this psalm we will find in Acts 2:25-28 : "For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance." "Being a prophet," Peter adds, "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." We must bring Christ into the Psalm as well as history, to catch all their light, to hear all their music, and enjoy all their gladness. O blessed darling of Israel, David, thou wast the sweet singer of Israel; Christ was in thee. Who can explain the mystery of heredity and propagation? The very Son of God was in him at the time. He was, according to the flesh, the father of the Messiah at the time. And if we are related to the past, who can tell in what degree and in what mysterious manner we are related to the future? Who is singing in that songster, preaching in that preacher, writing in that author? The world may have to wait ages before it gets the full explanation of many a word of eloquence, and many a deed of charity.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou givest songs in the nighttime; that is our surprise. Thou makest us to pray in the morning, and causest us to sing at night, and at midday thou dost make us lie down in the shadow, for the heat is too great for us. All the day long thy love is revealed unto us; thou hast not left one hour without a sign of thy presence and care. We bless thee for this assurance; it is triumph in the day of battle, it is healing in the night of sickness, it is immortality in the last struggle. We thank thee we are able to say that in our right hand is thy rod, and in our left hand thy staff, and though the valley of the shadow of death is still where it ever was, yet a great light from heaven shines upon it, and it becomes an upward way—a valley leading to the skies. Behold, thou hast made all things new. Out of the dust thou didst make man: is not the dust, then, living—ancient dust—itself the remains of incalculable life? Thou didst turn the sheepskin into a covering for human nakedness: do not all things minister to man? Thou hast turned the common bread into thy body, O Christ, and the wine into thy blood, O Lamb of God, and thou wilt perfect this process of transformation until the whole earth shall become beautiful, pure, a temple of God, full of holy Psalm 16:3

Take this as indicating the mixed character of human society. Even if we had no Bible it would be impossible to deny that human society is composed of conflicting and irreconcilable elements. We find in the same community honesty and dishonesty, simplicity and duplicity, faithfulness and faithlessness, generosity and selfishness. The Bible does not create these distinctions; it recognises them. We have magnanimous men, and men of little mind: on every side we see men who take large and generous views of life, and men whose views of life are small and suspicious. Why, then, is it impossible that there should be men to whom the word "saint" should be applied? By "saints" understand holy men, separated men, men who live and move and have their being in God, men who test everything by divine standards. Has there ever been a time when the earth has been totally void of saints? By saints we are not to understand men who are perfect, but men whose aim is to discover God and to obey God. A saint is no good in any final sense. He is only good in his purpose, in his relations to other men, and in his aspirations towards God. Beside the holiness of God there is no purity. God chargeth his angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in his sight. Yet, according to the common use of language, and according to a very high moral standard, there are moral men, honest men, upright men, saints, peculiarly and distinctively men who draw their life and their inspiration from God. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous. Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with him. They shall be mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I number up my jewels. There is no indiscriminateness in the judgment of God. The Lord separateth men as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. Continually the Lord distinguishes between good and evil, light and darkness, and his judgment is directed according to the character of those who are set before him. To the righteous heaven itself is small; to the unrighteous all punishment is eternal. The saints are the salt of the earth. The saints are the light of the world. The saints are the security of the world. For the sake of ten righteous men, who can tell how many cities the Lord is now sparing? Who can tell how much we are indebted even for physical advantages to the praying souls in the neighbourhood in which we live? Life is not the flat and superficial thing which atheism would have us believe; it: is profound, subtle, infinite; the elements and forces which it touches are beyond all reckoning. So long as there are good men upon the earth, the earth will be precious in the sight of God. Let us rejoice when the godly are multiplied, for in their increase is there multiplication of prayer and multiplication of holy service.