Psalm 5

The psalms are gradually becoming an old friend of mine. Although I still cannot claim to know them all, each time through, I recognize more along my journey through them, and some have become dear familiar friends. 

My favorite commentaries on the psalms are Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon's Treasury of David. This time around, I am trying to give some others a fair shot as well. Psalm 5 was on my reading list for today.

"For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. 

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. 

You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man."

"The passage is worthy of our most special attention. For we know how greatly we are discouraged by the unbounded insolence of the wicked. If God does not immediately restrain it, we are either stupified and dismayed, or cast down into despair. But David, from this, rather finds matter of encouragement and confi-dence. The greater the lawlessness with which his enemies proceeded against him, the more earnestly did he supplicate preservation from God, whose office it is to destroy all the wicked, because he hates all wickedness. Let all the godly, therefore, learn, as often as they have to contend against violence, deceit, and injustice, to raise their thoughts to God in order to encourage themselves in the certain hope of deliverance, according as Paul also exhorts them in 2 Thessalonians 1:5, “Which is,” says he, “a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled, rest with us.” And assuredly he would not be the judge of the world if there were not laid up in store with him a recompense for all the ungodly. " -JC

For me, it's a continual struggle to watch those who seem far from the Lord flourish in this world. It's a high bar to wait until eternal judgment for amends---distant, intangible. I appreciate Calvin's exhortation to raise our eyes unto Him for our deliverance, and his connection to Paul's sentiments in 2 Thessalonians, which is a passage I'm not as familiar with. Yes, I am, more often than not, "discouraged by the unbounded insolence of the wicked." David was intimately familiar with wickedness. Throughout his life, he had close friends and relatives plot against him, even up to his old age and deathbed. Why should any of us expect any better of this world? 

"At the outset he asks God to hear not only his words but consider his meditation as well. It is a valid request. The Holy Spirit can interpret our meditations just as easily as the words we speak." -BBC

"Give ear to my words, O Lord." Psalm 5:1

"The inward and outward sides of the Divine life

The Psalm falls into two main parts— Psa_5:1-7, and Psa_5:8-12. The inward comes first; for communion with God in the secret place of the Most High must precede all walking in His way, and all blessed experience of His protection, with the joy that springs from it. The Psalm is a prayerful meditation on the inexhaustible theme of the contrasted blessedness of the righteous, and misery of the sinner, as shown in the two great halves of life: the inward of communion, and the outward of action. A Psalmist who has grasped the idea that the true sacrifice is prayer, is not likely to have missed the cognate thought that the “house of the Lord, of which he will presently speak, is something other than any material shrine. But to offer sacrifice is not all which he rejoices to resolve. He will “keep watch”; that can only mean that he will be on the outlook for the answer to his prayer, or, if we may retain the allusion to sacrifice, for the downward flash of the Divine fire, which tells his prayer’s acceptance. " BI, MacLaren