The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 1: Psalms I.-XXXVIII.Maclaren, Alexander
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 1: Psalms I.-XXXVIII.
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
The hypothesis of the Davidic authorship gives special force to the
great assurance of ver. 7. The fugitive, in his rude shelter in the
cave of Adullam, thinks of Jacob, who, in his hour of defenceless
need, was heartened by the vision of the angel encampment surrounding
his own little band, and named the place "Mahanaim," the two camps.
That fleeting vision was a temporary manifestation of abiding reality.
Wherever there is a camp of them that fear God, there is another, of
which the helmed and sworded angel that appeared to Joshua is Captain,
and the name of every such place is Two Camps. That is the sight which
brightens the eyes that look to God. That mysterious personality, "the
Angel of the Lord," is only mentioned in the Psalter here and in Psalm
xxxv. In other places, He appears as the agent of Divine
communications, and especially as the guide and champion of Israel. He
is "the angel of God's face," the personal revealer of His presence
and nature. His functions correspond to those of the Word in John's
Gospel, and these, conjoined with the supremacy indicated in his name,
suggest that "_the_ Angel of the Lord" is, in fact, the everlasting
Son of the Father, through whom the Christology of the New Testament
teaches that all Revelation has been mediated. The psalmist did not
know the full force of the name, but he believed that there was a
Person, in an eminent and singular sense God's messenger, who would
cast his protection round the devout, and bid inferior heavenly
beings draw their impregnable ranks about them. Christians can tell
more than he could, of the Bearer of the name. It becomes them to be
all the surer of His protection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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