The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2: Psalms XXXIX.-LXXXIX.Maclaren, Alexander
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2: Psalms XXXIX.-LXXXIX.
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
There may be deep meaning in the slight omission of "greatly" in the
second refrain. Confidence has grown. The first hope was that the
waiting heart should not be much shaken, that the tottering fence
should not be quite thrown down; the second is that it shall not be
shaken at all. An access of faith has poured into the singer's soul
with his song; and now he has no thought of the crowd of assailants,
who have faded from his sight because he is gazing on God. Hence the
second pair of verses in this strophe (vv. 7, 8) substitutes for the
description of their fierce rush the triumphant reiteration of what
God is to the psalmist, and an invitation to others to come with him
into that strong refuge. The transition to addressing the "people" is
natural, if the psalm is David's. The phrase would then apply to his
immediate followers, who were one with him in peril, and whom he would
fain have one with him in trust. But the LXX. has another reading,
which involves only the insertion of a letter, that may easily have
dropped out, in the word rendered "time," and which makes the verse
run more smoothly. It reads "all the congregation of the people," in
which it is followed by Baethgen, Cheyne, and others. Whoever the
psalmist was, he felt the impulse which follows all deep experience
of the security that comes from hiding in God--namely, the longing
to beckon in others out of the storm into peace. Every man who has
learned that God is a refuge for him is thereby assured that He is the
same for all men, and thereby moved to beseech them to make the like
blessed discovery. The way into that hiding-place is trust. "Pour out
before Him your heart," says the psalmist. "In everything by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known
unto God," says Paul. They both mean the same thing. We take refuge
in our refuge when we set our faith on God, and tell Him all that
threatens or troubles us. When we do, we are no longer in the open,
defenceless before the rush of enemies, but housed in God, or, as Paul
puts it, guarded in Christ Jesus, as in a fortress. No wonder that the
psalm pauses for a moment on that thought, and lets the notes of harp
and horn impress it on the listeners!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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