Various Notes on the Psalms

"That which the French proverb hath of sickness is true of all evils, that they come on horseback and go away on foot; we have often seen that a sudden fall, or one meal’s surfeit, has stuck by many to their graves; whereas pleasures come like oxen, slow and heavily, and go away like post horses, upon the spur. Sorrows, because they are lingering guests, I will entertain but moderately, knowing that the more they are made of the longer they will continue; and for pleasures, because they stay not, and do but call to drink at my door, I will use them as passengers with slight respect. He is his own best friend that makes the least of both of them." (Joseph Hall.)

Tough going with 109 and 110---I need to take time to hash through them, but they are not particularly winsome psalms, but psalms of punishment and justice.  I would much rather dwell on the merciful character of the Lord!

Psalm 109

One thing I find interesting is that the psalmist welcomes conflict---especially between the Lord and his enemy.  Our attitudes today are different---"pray for your enemies."  But here, David openly prays against his enemies.  As this is a prayer of David, it makes the whole ball of wax worse---because I don't understand why David gave Saul such a long rope (and Absalom, among others), yet he seems militantly angry and judgmental here.  I clearly don't understand the culture I think.  Or David for that matter.  Digging in....

Well, it looks like I am not alone in my initial reaction:

"Of all the Psalms of imprecation, this one is unrivaled for first place. No other calls down the judgment of God with such distilled vitriol or with such comprehensive detail. The reader cannot fail to be intrigued and fascinated by the sheer ingenuity of the psalmist in the variety of punishments he invokes on his foes!"  -BBC

What is a psalm of "imprecation"  need to dig more when I have inclination and time.

Interesting bit here---David WAS praying for his enemies, yet cursing them to God too.   Hmmmm, new thought here---you can pray for someone and still detest their behavior and bring it to God.

Psa 109:4  For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.

Another comment to ponder---the real enemy is the larger evil, not just that person:

"It will help us to understand the severity of this Psalm if we remember that it refers not only to David and his foe, but also to Messiah and His betrayer, and also perhaps to Israel and the Anti-Christ in a day still future."

Here the BBC commentator takes his best stab at it:

 "The explanation that appeals to me most is that the imprecatory Psalms express a spirit that was proper for a Jew living under the law, but not proper for a Christian living under grace. The reason these Psalms seem harsh to us is because we are viewing them in the light of the New Testament revelation. David and the other psalmists did not have the New Testament. As Scroggie points out:
. . . it will be well to recognize at once the fact that the previous dispensation was inferior to the present one, that while the Law is not contrary to the Gospel it is not equal to it, that while Christ came to fulfill the Law He came also to transcend it. We must be careful not to judge of expressions in the Psalter which savor of vindictiveness and vengeance by the standards of the Pauline Epistles."

A good solution...except that now I have dissonance about the doctrine of dispensationalism as I think it brings its own problems to the table.

Ahhh, he also seems to believe in the concept of generational sin....one that I tend to lean towards too...not  a spooky kind of "curse," but more that our actions have consequences that project to future generations.   In a very practical way, this is generational sin.

"While the inclusion of a man's family in his judgment seems rather extreme to us, it was justified to the psalmist by the fact that God had threatened to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation (Exo_20:5; Exo_34:7; Num_14:18; Deu_5:9). Whether we like it or not, there are laws in the spiritual realm under which sins have a way of working themselves out in a man's family. No man is an island; the consequences of his acts reach out to others as well as affecting himself."  BBC

MacLaren on Time

I particularly liked MacLaren's commentary on 1 Chronicles 29:29-30.   Time is such a slippery concept--the correct use of it, the loss of it, the critical nature of seizing the moment as it ripens:   

"Note “times” which make up each life. By “the times” the writer does not merely mean the

succession of moments. Each life is made up of a series, not merely of successive moments, but of well-marked epochs, each of which has its own character, its own responsibilities, its own opportunities, in each of which there is some special work to be done, some grace to be cultivated, some lesson to be learned, some sacrifice to be made; and if it is let slip it never comes back any more. The old alchemists used to believe that there was what they called the “moment of projection” when, into the heaving molten mass in their crucible, if they dropped the magic powder, the whole would turn into gold; an instant later and there would be explosion and death; an instant earlier and there would be no effect. And so God’s moments come to us, every one of them—a crisis.

I. The power that moves the times. How dreary a thing it is if all that we have to say about life is, “The times pass over us,” like the blind rush of the stream, or the movement of the sea around our coasts, eating away here, and depositing its spoils there, sometimes taking and sometimes giving, but all the work of mere aimless and purposeless chance or of natural causes. There is nothing more dismal or paralysing than the contemplation of the flow of the times over our heads, unless we see in their flow something far more than that. The passage of our epochs over us is not merely the aimless low of a stream but the movement of a current which God directs. “My times are in Thy hand.”

III. How eloquently the text suggests the transiency of all the “times.” They “passed over him” as the wind through an archway, that whistles and cometh not again. How blessed it is to cherish that wholesome sense of the transieney of things here below! The times roll over us, like the seas that break upon some isolated rock, and when the tide has fallen and the vain flood has subsided the rock is them. If the world helps us to God, we need not mind though it passes and the fashion thereof.

IV. The transitory “times that went over” Israel’s king are all recorded imperishably on the pages here. The record, though condensed, lives for ever. It takes a thousand rose-trees to make a vial full of essence of roses. The record and issues of life will be condensed into small compass, but the essence of it is eternal. We shall find it again, and have to drink as we have brewed, when we get yonder." (A. M Maclaren, D. D.)

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