David
penned this psalm (we suppose) upon occasion of some great deliverance which
God wrought for him and his people from some very threatening danger, which
was likely to have involved them all in ruin, whether by foreign invasion,
or intestine insurrection, is not certain; whatever it was he seems to have
been himself much affected, and very desirous to affect others, with the
goodness of God, in making a way for them to escape. To him he is careful to
give all the glory, and takes none to himself as conquerors usually do. I.
He here magnifies the greatness of the danger they were in, and of the ruin
they were at the brink of, ver. 1-5. II. He gives God the glory of their
escape, ver. 6, 7 compared with ver. 1, 2. III. He takes encouragement
thence to trust in God, ver. 8. In singing this psalm, besides the
application of it to any particular deliverance wrought for us and our
people, in our days and the days of our fathers, we may have in our thoughts
the great work of our redemption by Jesus Christ, by which we were rescued
from the powers of darkness.
|
The Security of God's People.
|
|
|
|
A song of degrees of David.
1 If it had not been the LORD
who was on our side, now may Israel say; 2 If it had not been
the LORD
who was on our side, when men rose up against us: 3 Then they
had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:
4 Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our
soul: 5 Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.
The people of God, being here called upon to praise God for their
deliverance, are to take notice,
I. Of the malice of men, by which they were reduced to the very brink of
ruin. Let Israel say that there was but a step between them and death: the
more desperate the disease appears to have been the more does the skill of
the Physician appear in the cure. Observe, 1. Whence the threatening danger
came: Men rose up against us, creatures of our own kind, and yet bent
upon our ruin. Homo homini lupus--Man is a wolf to man. No marvel
that the red dragon, the roaring lion, should seek to swallow us up; but
that men should thirst after the blood of men, Absalom after the blood of
his own father, that a woman should be drunk with the blood of saints, is
what, with St. John, we may wonder at with great admiration. From men we may
expect humanity, yet there are those whose tender mercies are cruel.
But what was the matter with these men? Why their wrath was kindled
against us (v. 3); something or other they were angry at, and
then no less would serve than the destruction of those they had conceived a
displeasure against. Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous. Their
wrath was kindled as fire ready to consume us. They were proud; and the
wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. They were daring in their
attempt; they rose up against us, rose in rebellion, with a
resolution to swallow us up alive. 2. How far it went, and how fatal
it would have been if it had gone a little further: "We should have
been devoured as a lamb by a lion, not only slain, but swallowed up,
so that there would have been no relics of us remaining, swallowed up with
so much haste, ere we were aware, that we should have gone down alive to the
pit. We should have been deluged as the low grounds by a land-flood or the
sands by a high spring-tide." This similitude he dwells upon, with the
ascents which bespeak this a song of degrees, or risings, like the rest. The
waters had overwhelmed us. What of us? Why the stream had gone over
our souls, our lives, our comforts, all that is dear to us. What waters?
Why the proud waters. God suffers the enemies of his people sometimes
to prevail very far against them, that his own power may appear the more
illustrious in their deliverance.
II. Of the goodness of God, by which they were rescued from the very brink
of ruin: "The Lord was on our side; and, if he had not been
so, we should have been undone." 1. "God was on our side; he
took our part, espoused our cause, and appeared for us. He was our helper,
and a very present help, a help on our side, nigh at hand. He was with us,
not only for us, but among us, and commander-in-chief of our forces."
2. That God was Jehovah; there the emphasis lies. "If it had not been
Jehovah himself, a God of infinite power and perfection, that had undertaken
our deliverance, our enemies would have overpowered us." Happy the
people, therefore, whose God is Jehovah, a God all-sufficient. Let Israel
say this, to his honour, and resolve never to forsake him.
|
The
Security of God's People.
|
|
|
|
6 Blessed be the LORD,
who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. 7 Our
soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is
broken, and we are escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of
the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
Here the psalmist further magnifies the great deliverance God had lately
wrought for them.
I. That their hearts might be the more enlarged in thankfulness to him (v.
6): Blessed be the Lord. God is the author of all our deliverances,
and therefore he must have the glory of them. We rob him of his due if we do
not return thanks to him. And we are the more obliged to praise him because
we had such a narrow escape. We were delivered, 1. Like a lamb out of the
very jaws of a beast of prey: God has not given us as a prey to their
teeth, intimating that they had no power over God's people but what was
given them from above. They could not be a prey to their teeth unless God
gave them up, and therefore they were rescued, because God would not
suffer them to be ruined. 2. Like a bird, a little bird (the word
signifies a sparrow), out of the snare of the fowler. The enemies are
very subtle and spiteful; they lay snares for God's people, to bring them
into sin and trouble, and to hold them there. Sometimes they seem to have
prevailed so far as to gain their point. God's people are taken in the
snare, and are as unable to help themselves out as any weak and silly bird
is; and then is God's time to appear for their relief, when all other
friends fail; then God breaks the snare, and turns the counsel of the
enemies into foolishness: The snare is broken and so we are delivered.
Isaac was saved when he lay ready to be sacrificed. Jehovah-jireh--in the
mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
II. That their hearts, and the hearts of others, might be the more
encouraged to trust in God in the like dangers (v. 8): Our help is
in the name of the Lord. David had directed us (Ps. cxxi. 2) to depend
upon God for help as to our personal concerns--My help is in the name of
the Lord; here as to the concerns of the public--Our help is so.
It is a comfort to all that lay the interests of God's Israel near their
hearts that Israel's God is the same that made the world, and therefore will
have a church in the world, and can secure that church in times of the
greatest danger and distress. In him therefore let the church's friends put
their confidence, and they shall not be put to confusion.
