This
psalm has something of David in it, but much more of Christ. It begins with
such expressions of devotion as may be applied to Christ; but concludes with
such confidence of a resurrection (and so timely a one as to prevent
corruption) as must be applied to Christ, to him only, and cannot be
understood of David, as both St. Peter and St. Paul have observed, Acts ii.
24; xiii. 36. For David died, and was buried, and saw corruption. I. David
speaks of himself as a member of Christ, and so he speaks the language of
all good Christians, professing his confidence in God ( ver. 1), his consent
to him ( ver. 2), his affection to the people of God ( ver. 3), his
adherence to the true worship of God ( ver. 4), and his entire complacency
and satisfaction in God and the interest he had in him, ver. 5-7. II. He
speaks of himself as a type of Christ, and so he speaks the language of
Christ himself, to whom all the rest of the psalm is expressly and at large
applied (Acts ii. 25, &c.). David speaks concerning him (not concerning
himself), "I foresaw the Lord always before my face," &c. And
this he spoke, being a prophet, ver. 30, 31. He spoke, 1. Of the special
presence of God with the Redeemer in his services and sufferings, ver. 8. 2.
Of the prospect which the Redeemer had of his own resurrection and the glory
that should follow, which carried him cheerfully through his undertaking,
ver. 9-11.
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Believing
Confidence; Consecration to God.
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Michtam of David.
1 Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my
trust. 2 O my soul, thou hast said unto the LORD,
Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee;
3 But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the
excellent, in whom is all my delight. 4 Their sorrows
shall be multiplied that hasten after another god:
their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names
into my lips. 5 The LORD
is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my
lot. 6 The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;
yea, I have a goodly heritage. 7 I will bless the LORD,
who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.
This psalm is entitled Michtam, which some translate a golden
psalm, a very precious one, more to be valued by us than gold, yea, than
much fine gold, because it speaks so plainly of Christ and his resurrection,
who is the true treasure hidden in the field of the Old Testament.
I. David here flies to God's protection with a cheerful believing confidence
in it (v. 1): "Preserve me, O God! from the deaths, and
especially from the sins, to which I am continually exposed; for in thee,
and in thee only, do I put my trust." Those that by faith commit
themselves to the divine care, and submit themselves to the divine guidance,
have reason to hope for the benefit of both. This is applicable to Christ,
who prayed, Father, save me from this hour, and trusted in God that
he would deliver him.
II. He recognizes his solemn dedication of himself to God as his God (v.
2): "O my soul! thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord,
and therefore thou mayest venture to trust him." Note, 1. It is the
duty and interest of every one of us to acknowledge the Lord for our Lord,
to subject ourselves to him, and then to stay ourselves upon him. Adonai
signifies My stayer, the strength of my heart. 2. This must be done
with our souls: "O my soul! thou hast said it." Covenanting with
God must be heart-work; all that is within us must be employed therein and
engaged thereby. 3. Those who have avouched the Lord for their Lord should
be often putting themselves in mind of what they have done. "Hast thou
said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord? Say it again then, stand to it,
abide by it, and never unsay it. Hast thou said it? Take the comfort of it,
and live up to it. He is thy Lord, and worship thou him, and let thy eye be
ever towards him."
III. He devotes himself to the honour of God in the service of the saints (v.
2, 3): My goodness extends not to thee, but to the saints. Observe,
1. Those that have taken the lord for their Lord must, like him, be good and
do good; we do not expect happiness without goodness. 2. Whatever good there
is in us, or is done by us, we must humbly acknowledge that it extends not
to God; so that we cannot pretend to merit any thing by it. God has no need
of our services; he is not benefited by them, nor can they add any thing to
his infinite perfection and blessedness. The wisest, and best, and most
useful, men in the world cannot be profitable to God, Job xxii. 2; xxxv. 7.
God is infinitely above us, and happy without us, and whatever good we do it
is all from him; so that we are indebted to him, not he to us: David owns it
(1 Chron. xxix. 14), Of thy own have we given thee. 3. If God be
ours, we must, for his sake, extend our goodness to those that are his, to
the saints in the earth; for what is done to them he is pleased to take as
done to himself, having constituted them his receivers. Note, (1.) There are
saints in the earth; and saints on earth we must all be, or we shall never
be saints in heaven. Those that are renewed by the grace of God, and devoted
to the glory of God, are saints on earth. (2.) The saints in the earth are
excellent ones, great, mighty, magnificent ones, and yet some of them so
poor in the world that they need to have David's goodness extended to them.
God makes them excellent by the grace he gives them. The righteous is
more excellent than his neighbour, and then he accounts them excellent.
They are precious in his sight and honourable; they are his jewels, his
peculiar treasure. Their God is their glory, and a diadem of beauty to them.
(3.) All that have taken the Lord for their God delight in his saints as
excellent ones, because they bear his image, and because he loves them.
David, though a king, was a companion of all that feared God (Ps.
cxix. 63), even the meanest, which was a sign that his delight was in them.
(4.) It is not enough for us to delight in the saints, but, as there is
occasion, our goodness must extend to them; we must be ready to show them
the kindness they need, distribute to their necessities, and abound in the
labour of love to them. This is applicable to Christ. The salvation he
wrought out for us was no gain to God, for our ruin would have been no loss
to him; but the goodness and benefit of it extend to us men, in whom he
delighteth, Prov. viii. 31. For their sakes, says he, I sanctify
myself, John xvii. 19. Christ delights even in the saints on earth,
notwithstanding their weaknesses and manifold infirmities, which is a good
reason why we should.
IV. He disclaims the worship of all false gods and all communion with their
worshippers, v. 4. Here, 1. He reads the doom of idolaters, who
hasten after another God, being mad upon their idols, and pursuing them as
eagerly as if they were afraid they would escape from them: Their sorrows
shall be multiplied, both by the judgments they bring upon themselves
from the true God whom they forsake and by the disappointment they will meet
with in the false gods they embrace. Those that multiply gods multiply
griefs to themselves; for, whoever thinks one God too little, will find two
too many, and yet hundreds not enough. 2. He declares his resolution to have
no fellowship with them nor with their unfruitful works of darkness: "Their
drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, not only because the gods
they are offered to are a lie, but because the offerings themselves are
barbarous." At God's altar, because the blood made atonement, the
drinking of it was most strictly prohibited, and the drink-offerings were of
wine; but the devil prescribed to his worshippers to drink of the blood of
the sacrifices, to teach them cruelty. "I will have nothing to do"
(says David) "with those bloody deities, nor so much as take their
names into my lips with any delight in them or respect to them." Thus
must we hate idols and idolatry with a perfect hatred. Some make this also
applicable to Christ and his undertaking, showing the nature of the
sacrifice he offered (it was not the blood of bulls and goats, which was
offered according to the law; that was never named, nor did he ever make any
mention of it, but his own blood), showing also the multiplied sorrows of
the unbelieving Jews, who hastened after another king, Cæsar, and are still
hastening after another Messiah, whom they in vain look for.
V. He repeats the solemn choice he had made of God for his portion and
happiness (v. 5), takes to himself the comfort of the choice (v.
6), and gives God the glory of it, v. 7. This is very much the
language of a devout and pious soul in its gracious exercises.
1. Choosing the Lord for its portion and happiness. "Most men take the
world for their chief good, and place their felicity in the enjoyments of
it; but this I say, The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my
cup, the portion I make choice of, and will gladly take up with, how
poor soever my condition is in this world. Let me have the love and favour
of God, and be accepted of him; let me have the comfort of communion with
God, and satisfaction in the communications of his graces and comforts; let
me have an interest in his promises, and a title by promise to everlasting
life and happiness in the future state; and I have enough, I need no more, I
desire no more, to complete my felicity." Would we do well and wisely
for ourselves, we must take God, in Christ, to be, (1.) The portion of our
inheritance in the other world. Heaven is an inheritance. God himself is the
inheritance of the saints there, whose everlasting bliss is to enjoy him. We
must take that for our inheritance, our home, our rest, our lasting,
everlasting, good, and look upon this world to be no more ours than the
country through which our road lies when we are on a journey. (2.) The
portion of our cup in this world, with which we are nourished, and
refreshed, and kept from fainting. Those have not God for theirs who do not
reckon his comforts the most reviving cordials, acquaint themselves with
them, and make use of them as sufficient to counterbalance all the
grievances of this present time and to sweeten the most bitter cup of
affliction.
2. Confiding in him for the securing of this portion: "Thou
maintainest my lot. Thou that hast by promise made over thy self to me,
to be mine, wilt graciously make good what thou hast promised, and never
leave me to myself to forfeit this happiness, nor leave it in the power of
my enemies to rob me of it. Nothing shall pluck me out of thy hands, nor
separate me from thy love, and the sure mercies of David." The saints
and their bliss are kept by the power of God.
3. Rejoicing in this portion, and taking a complacency in it (v. 6): The
lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Those have reason to say so
that have God for their portion; they have a worthy portion, a goodly
heritage. What can they have better? What can they desire more? Return
unto thy rest, O my soul! and look no further. Note, Gracious persons,
though they still covet more of God, never covet more than God; but, being
satisfied of his loving-kindness, they are abundantly satisfied with it, and
envy not any their carnal mirth and sensual pleasures and delights, but
account themselves truly happy in what they have, and doubt not but to be
completely happy in what they hope for. Those whose lot is cast, as David's
was, in a land of light, in a valley of vision, where God is known and
worshipped, have, upon that account, reason to say, The lines have fallen
to me in pleasant places; much more those who have not only the means,
but the end, not only Immanuel's land, but Immanuel's love.
4. Giving thanks to God for it, and for grace to make this wise and happy
choice (v. 7): "I will bless the Lord who has given me
counsel, this counsel, to take him for my portion and happiness."
So ignorant and foolish are we that, if we be left to ourselves, our hearts
will follow our eyes, and we shall choose our own delusions, and forsake our
own mercies for lying vanities; and therefore, if we have indeed taken God
for our portion and preferred spiritual and eternal blessings before those
that are sensible and temporal, we must thankfully acknowledge the power and
goodness of divine grace directing and enabling us to make that choice. If
we have the pleasure of it, let God have the praise of it.
5. Making a good use of it. God having given him counsel by his word and
Spirit, his own reins also (his own thoughts) instructed him in the
night-season; when he was silent and solitary, and retired from the world,
then his own conscience (which is called the reins, Jer. xvii. 10)
not only reflected with comfort upon the choice he had made, but instructed
or admonished him concerning the duties arising out of this choice,
catechized him, and engaged and quickened him to live as one that had God
for his portion, by faith to live upon him and to live to him. Those who
have God for their portion, and who will be faithful to him, must give their
own consciences leave to deal thus faithfully and plainly with them.
All this may be applied to Christ, who made the Lord his portion and was
pleased with that portion, made his Father's glory his highest end and made
it his meat and drink to seek that and to do his will, and delighted to
prosecute his undertaking, pursuant to his Father's counsel, depending upon
him to maintain his lot and to carry him through his undertaking. We may
also apply it to ourselves in singing it, renewing our choice of God as
ours, with a holy complacency and satisfaction.
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Prophecy
Relating to the Messiah; Sufferings and Consequent Glory of Christ.
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8 I have set the LORD
always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be
moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my
flesh also shall rest in hope. 10 For thou wilt not leave my
soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see
corruption. 11 Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy
presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are
pleasures for evermore.
All these verses are quoted by St. Peter in his first sermon, after the
pouring out of the Spirit on the day of pentecost (Acts ii. 25-28); and he
tells us expressly that David in them speaks concerning Christ and
particularly of his resurrection. Something we may allow here of the
workings of David's own pious and devout affections towards God, depending
upon his grace to perfect every thing that concerned him, and looking for
the blessed hope, and happy state on the other side death, in the enjoyment
of God; but in these holy elevations towards God and heaven he was carried
by the spirit of prophecy quite beyond the consideration of himself and his
own case, to foretel the glory of the Messiah, in such expressions as were
peculiar to that, and could not be understood of himself. The New Testament
furnishes us with a key to let us into the mystery of these lines.
I. These verses must certainly be applied to Christ; of him speaks the
prophet this, as did many of the Old-Testament prophets, who testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow (1
Pet. i. 11), and that is the subject of this prophecy here. It is foretold
(as he himself showed concerning this, no doubt, among other prophecies in
this psalm, Luke xxiv. 44, 46) that Christ should suffer, and rise from
the dead, 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4.
1. That he should suffer and die. This is implied here when he says (v.
8), I shall not be moved; he supposed that he should be struck at,
and have a dreadful shock given him, as he had in his agony, when his soul
was exceedingly sorrowful, and he prayed that the cup might pass from him.
When he says, "My flesh shall rest," it is implied that he
must put off the body, and therefore must go through the pains of death. It
is likewise plainly intimated that his soul must go into a state of
separation from the body, and that his body, so deserted, would be in
imminent danger of seeing corruption--that he should not only die, but be
buried, and abide for some time under the power of death.
2. That he should be wonderfully borne up by the divine power in suffering
and dying. (1.) That he should not be moved, should not be driven off from
his undertaking nor sink under the weight of it, that he should not fail nor
be discouraged (Isa. xlii. 4), but should proceed and persevere in it, till
he could say, It is finished. Though the service was hard and the
encounter hot, and he trod the winepress alone, yet he was not moved, did
not give up the cause, but set his face as a flint, Isa. l. 7-9. Here am
I, let these go their way. Nay, (2.) That his heart should rejoice and
his glory be glad, that he should go on with his undertaking, not only
resolutely, but cheerfully, and with unspeakable pleasure and satisfaction,
witness that saying (John xvii. 11), Now I am no more in the world, but I
come to thee, and that (John xviii. 11), The cup that my Father has
given me, shall I not drink it? and many the like. By his glory is meant
his tongue, as appears, Acts ii. 26. For our tongue is our glory, and
never more so than when it is employed in glorifying God. Now there were
three things which bore him up and carried him on thus cheerfully:-- [1.]
The respect he had to his Father's will and glory in what he did: I have
set the Lord always before me. He still had an eye to his Father's
commandment (John x. 18, xiv. 31), the will of him that sent him. He aimed
at his Father's honour and the restoring of the interests of his kingdom
among men, and this kept him from being moved by the difficulties he met
with; for he always did those things that pleased his Father. [2.] The
assurance he had of his Father's presence with him in his sufferings: He
is at my right hand, a present help to me, nigh at hand in the time of
need. He is near that justifieth me (Isa. l. 8); he is at my right
hand, to direct and strengthen it, and hold it up, Ps. lxxxix. 21. When he
was in his agony an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen him, Luke xxii.
43. To this the victories and triumphs of the cross were all owing; it was
the Lord at his right hand that struck through kings, Ps. cx. 5; Isa.
xlii. 1, 2. [3.] The prospect he had of a glorious issue of his sufferings.
It was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross,
Heb. xii. 2. He rested in hope, and that made his rest glorious, Isa. xi.
10. He knew he should be justified in the Spirit by his resurrection, and
straightway glorified. See John xiii. 31, 32.
3. That he should be brought through his sufferings, and brought from under
the power of death by a glorious resurrection. (1.) That his soul should not
be left in hell, that is, his human spirit should not be long left, as other
men's spirits are, in a state of separation from the body, but should, in a
little time, return and be re-united to it, never to part again. (2.) That
being God's holy One in a peculiar manner, sanctified to the work of
redemption and perfectly free from sin, he should not see corruption nor
feel it. This implies that he should not only be raised from the grave, but
raised so soon that his dead body should not so much as begin to corrupt,
which, in the course of nature, it would have done if it had not been raised
the third day. We, who have so much corruption in our souls, must expect
that our bodies also will corrupt (Job xxiv. 19); but that holy One of God
who knew no sin saw no corruption. Under the law it was strictly ordered
that those parts of the sacrifices which were not burnt upon the altar
should by no means be kept till the third day, lest they should putrefy
(Lev. vii. 15, 18), which perhaps pointed at Christ's rising the third day,
that he might not see corruption--neither was a bone of him broken.
4. That he should be abundantly recompensed for his sufferings, with the joy
set before him, v. 11. He was well assured, (1.) That he should not
miss of his glory: "Thou wilt show me the path of life, and lead
me to that life through this darksome valley." In confidence of this,
when he gave up the ghost, he said, Father, into thy hands I commit my
spirit; and, a little before, Father, glorify me with thy own self.
(2.) That he should be received into the presence of God, to sit at his
right hand. His being admitted into God's presence would be the acceptance
of his service and his being set at his right hand the recompence of it.
(3.) Thus, as a reward for the sorrows he underwent for our redemption, he
should have a fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore; not only
the glory he had with God, as God, before all worlds, but the joy and
pleasure of a Mediator, in seeing his seed, and the success and prosperity
of his undertaking, Isa. liii. 10, 11.
II. Christ being the Head of the body, the church, these verses may, for the
most part, be applied to all good Christians, who are guided and animated by
the Spirit of Christ; and, in singing them, when we have first given glory
to Christ, in whom, to our everlasting comfort, they have had their
accomplishment, we may then encourage and edify ourselves and one another
with them, and may hence learn, 1. That it is our wisdom and duty to set the
Lord always before us, and to see him continually at our right hand,
wherever we are, to eye him as our chief good and highest end, our owner,
ruler, and judge, our gracious benefactor, our sure guide and strict
observer; and, while we do thus, we shall not be moved either from our duty
or from our comfort. Blessed Paul set the Lord before him, when, though
bonds and afflictions did await him, he could bravely say, None of these
things move me, Acts xx. 24. 2. That, if our eyes be ever towards God,
our hearts and tongues may ever rejoice in him; it is our own fault if they
do not. If the heart rejoice in God, out of the abundance of that let the
mouth speak, to his glory, and the edification of others. 3. That dying
Christians, as well as a dying Christ, may cheerfully put off the body, in a
believing expectation of a joyful resurrection: My flesh also shall rest
in hope. Our bodies have little rest in this world, but in the grave
they shall rest as in their beds, Isa. lvii. 2. We have little to hope for
from this life, but we shall rest in hope of a better life; we may put off
the body in that hope. Death destroys the hope of man (Job xiv. 19),
but not the hope of a good Christian, Prov. xiv. 32. He has hope in his
death, living hopes in dying moments, hopes that the body shall not be left
for ever in the grave, but, though it see corruption for a time, it shall,
at the end of the time, be raised to immortality; Christ's resurrection is
an earnest of ours if we be his. 4. That those who live piously with God in
their eye may die comfortably with heaven in their eye. In this world sorrow
is our lot, but in heaven there is joy. All our joys here are empty and
defective, but in heaven there is a fulness of joy. Our pleasures here are
transient and momentary, and such is the nature of them that it is not fit
they should last long; but those at God's right hand are pleasures for
evermore; for they are the pleasures of immortal souls in the immediate
vision and fruition of an eternal God.
