Bible Commentaries

A Prayer of David

Psalm 17:6)—I know thee, thou knowest me altogether; do not let our friendship go for nothing; complete it in perfect consummation, so that I may see light in thy light, and know the fulness of thy purpose in my being. There are times when we can turn our spiritual intimacy with God into immediate and practical advantage. We have not to begin our communion in the time of controversy; it is not in trouble that we originate the building of the sanctuary; but in hours of contentment and blessedness and general prosperity we have been cultivating the divine acquaintance, advancing our confidence on high, so that when the trouble comes in great shocks and gusts and tempests, God is not afar off but nigh at hand, and our intimacy becomes a real and valuable possession. Improve the quiet days, work hard when the wind is low; then when the days are full of noise, and the air is an angry tempest, there will be less to do in moving heaven, and in invoking and realising the right.

Observe the character of God as drawn by the Psalmist in this prayer. We have seen that: he regards God as righteous. That must be the foundation of all true theology. There must be no difficulties of a conscientious kind in our communion with heaven. Once unsettle the moral confidence, and the whole creation of a theological kind totters and dies, and properly so. Reason may be baffled, Imagination may be confounded, but Conscience must have a sure standing-place, an everlasting confidence,—must be so persuaded of God's righteousness as to be able to say, The end will be right; at the last even hell will confess that its pit is not too deep or its fire too hot Conscience keeps the whole nature right; conscience chastens imagination, and throws a rein upon the passion which would urge reason to undue and disastrous lengths. God has always been careful to keep conscience as it were upon his side, so that men might feel, whether by day or by night, all processes of providence would end in righteousness.

The Psalmist also looks upon God as probing the heart,—always seeking to know what is in it, watching its every throb and flush of colour. It is about the heart that God may be said to be anxious. Given a heart of honesty, a spirit that wishes supremely to be in the right, then how merciful—yea, how pitiful even to tears, and how patient beyond all known love is God, in relation to every other department of life! As we, on our side, are solicitous that there should be no dispute on moral grounds, in relation to the divine purpose and government, so God may be said to be anxious, on his side, that our heart should be right. That being Psalm 17:8).

What wings? Quote the Old Testament instances in which this figure is used, and you will find that they are instances relating to the eagle, the vulture,—flying things with great pinions that might almost darken the sun. Under such outspread pinions would the Psalmist be hidden. These are Hebrew figures, but we are not Hebrews. Is any use made of these figures, nearer our own custom, nearer our own simplicity? The answer is in the affirmative. Where the Hebrew says the "manikin" of the eye, the Gentile language says the "daughter" of the eye—"the little daughter"; a gentler term, a coming-down to our historical standing-place, without loss of dignity, but with some accession of tenderness. "Wings"—wings of the eagle—wings of the vulture, says the Hebrew; but when the Saviour speaks, he says, "as a hen." There is no loss of dignity; there is a revelation of household nearness and pity. The ancient figure is—"as an eagle stirreth up her nest"; in the New Testament the Saviour says, "I would have gathered thee as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings,"—poor wings, as compared with the eagle's and the vulture"s, but a mother's wings nevertheless; and but a figure after all, representing in some bold way, or in some modest form, the available almightiness of the Almighty God.

Another figure occurs in the thirteenth verse:—"Arise, O Lord, disappoint him." The English word "disappoint" does not represent the original meaning in the most graphic form. The figure is that of a champion going out to meet the enemy, and to break him in pieces. Read: Arise, O Lord, go forth, meet him ere he start from home; be first on the field; be ready to encounter him the moment he comes out from his hiding-place, and smite him with thy righteousness. Thus the Lord fights the battle alone oftentimes. We are not called into the controversy at all; the whole shock takes place without our knowledge, yet not without being an answer to our prayer. In the New Testament we have sketches of worldly men, but say whether there is any sketch amongst them equal to the portraiture given in the fourteenth verse of this Psalm. This is a perfect delineation of the worldly man. It is impossible to add one useful line to it:—"Men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes"; their life is a limited life; it is all visible, measurable, namable; the whole life can be written out in plain terms and figures, and the whole value can be totaled in summary numbers. It is a pitiful man who is sketched in the fourteenth verse—a worldling, a grubber, a man who lives in the dust,—almost a beast. Whatever may have been outworn by the process of the ages, this picture of the worldly man is today correct in every line, vivid and true in every tint.

We now come to the fifteenth verse, so generally misunderstood and misapplied:—"As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Who has not misread this verse by not perceiving its punctuation? How often has the comma after "awake" been struck out, and thus the whole sense of the passage lost! It has been read, "when I awake with thy likeness"; being so read it has been violated. Observe the punctuation, and further comment is needless. We might turn it round thus: I shall be satisfied with thy likeness when I awake. The man does not awake with the likeness; he is satisfied with the likeness when he awakes. But why is he about to awake? This is a note of time. The explanation of this is in the third verse:—"Thou hast visited me in the night." This prayer was a prayer offered in darkness. Who can tell how many of the Psalm were night thoughts? How could a soldier find time to write psalms or prayers in the day season, when every sound was an alarm, every shadow was a challenge? How could minstrels sing then, or suppliants stop to write their prayers? Beautiful is the figure of the Psalmist writing his psalms at night: the hurly-burly done for the day, and the scribe sets himself to make record of his heart's deepest experiences. Who cannot compose best at nighttime? The day seems to be made for active thought—outward, urgent service, and the calm night for setting down in order the recollections of the day's controversy. Now we come to the fifteenth verse:—"As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness"; I am about to sleep, to lie down and take what rest I may; I shall be satisfied with thy likeness when I awake: the morning shall see me a stronger Psalm 17:7

The word "lovingkindness" would have been enough by itself, yet here is the word "marvellous" attached to it as if to help out the wholeness of its meaning. We read in another place of the marvellous goodness of God. We read also that God did great and marvellous works in the field of Zoan. The finest expression of this kind we find in the speech of Paul, wherein he speaks of the "marvellous light" of the Gospel. It was not light only, but marvellous light. There was a distinctiveness of glory about it which dazzled the eyes of the soul. This is the experience of every man who comes into close and vital association with God. He is continually surprised at the bounty of heaven, at the tenderness of the divine fatherhood, at the largeness of the divine love; surprise follows surprise in ever-growing amazement, because imagination is left behind, and expression utterly fails when the goodness of God is contemplated. We must not reckon God's providences amongst common things. They do not belong to a class, as if they were parts of a whole. They are individual, outstanding, altogether unique and special. So the Bible must not be set in a row with other books, it must have no common enumeration; for ever it must be The Book, the one Book, the only Book, the marvellous Book. We cannot overtake God and enter into competition with him: we light our candle, but we must not hold it to the sun. The candle itself, could it speak, would say when the sun arose upon it, This is a marvellous light! So say all the stars, as they retire from the majesty of the advancing morning. Let us glory in the specialty of divine communications and heavenly revelations.