There is something to be supplied; it is like our Lord's own words in Luke xix. 42, "IF thou hadst known !"-a sentence never ended, and all the more emphatic and awfully significant for this very reason. Here, also, there is the same significance. It is "Who can tell, what heart of man can conceive, what might have come on me,-unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord!" Faith, and the "hope set before Him,” carried Him through his darkest hour. And hence, in verse 16, He leaves for the Church in all ages the counsel of one who has tried it himself,-" Wait on the Lord." Keep your eye ever on the Lord, expecting the light to break and help to

come.

The Church, and the Church's head, can lay claim to every clause of this blessed Psalm. That pledge of its truth in verse 5 has already in all ages been found faithfully performed. The Lord has ever hid his own in evil days, finding an Obadiah to feed his prophets, or sending them to a Cherith, whither his ravens shall carry provision. So that Augustine's confidence is that of all saints, "Qui tantum pignus dedit peregrinanti, non deseret pervenientem." We may call it then,-The Righteous One's confident assertion of safety when lonely amid surrounding foes.

PSALM XXVIII.

A Psalm of David.

1 UNTO thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not si'c ₺ to me:

Lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee,

When I lift up my hands toward thy Holy Oracle.

3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, Which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.

4 Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours:

Give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.

5 Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands,

He shall destroy them, and not build them up.

6 Blessed be the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.

7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped:

Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him. 8 The Lord is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed. 9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up for ever.

*

THE cry at the commencement is the appeal heavenward of The speaker.
one who anticipates, in the future (ver. 9), full salvation to
the Lord's people, and a time when their Shepherd shall feed
them in green pastures, and lift them up as his heritage to
their place of dignity and dominion. The secret persuasion
of this final issue pervades his song. If the preceding Psalm
took us up to a field of Zophim, whence we might espy the en-
camped legions, this Psalm shows us from the same height
these hosts of the ungodly shattered and dissipated, in answer
to the prayer of Him who makes intercession against them.
We may imagine the Psalmist,-whether David or David's
Son, the Church's head, or any member of the Church--as-
cending an eminence, overlooking the tents of the ungodly, and
there listening to their mirth and witnessing their revelry! He
is a Moses, crying to heaven against Amalek. It may be David,
who is the original "Anointed" of verse 8; but he is so as
uttering what the Lord and all his own might use in other days.
What intensity of earnest vehemence in verse 1! Not to be The contents.
heard, will be death! it will be the black despair of those who
go down to the pit! But his reasons for being heard are
powerful,-“I lift up my hand toward thy Holy Oracle,” (ver.
2). This is the Holy of Holies, where the Mercy-seat stood: for
the "oracle” is, in Hebrew, "77," the spot where Jehovah
spoke to men, referring probably to his promise in Exodus xxv.
22, "There will I meet thee, and commune (7) with thee."
The supplicant refers God, in this brief way, to his own pro-
vision for sinful men, and his own promise of blessing when-
ever that provision should be used. If we take the words as
uttered by Christ, how interesting to find him pleading with
reference to the types of his own person and work, presenting
them to the Father for us! If we use them as the words of

* 16
"Ipsius Mediatoris vox est, manu fortis, conflictu passionis."-Augustine.

G

David, or any saint, they still convey the same truth, namely, that the strongest plea which can rise from earth to heaven is drawn from the person and work of Jesus. No doubt, when Daniel prayed" with his windows open in his chamber toward Jerusalem" (Dan. vi. 10), he had his eye on "the Holy Oracle,' —on the person and work of Him who was set forth in Jerusalem. in the significant types that were to be found in the Holy of Holies.

In verse 3, the sympathy of the Righteous One in God's love of holiness appears; and in verse 4, his sympathy in God's justice, even when his burning wrath descends. It is full acquiescence that is expressed-nay, almost positive desire. But it is only as the redeemed in Rev. xix. 1, 3, are enabled to shout Alleluia" over the lost; or as the Redeemer (Luke xiii. 9), in the parable of the Fig-tree, promised to cease at last from intercession, and bid the axe take its swing.

Verse 5 is the answer whispered to the conscious heart of those who pray; which causes thanksgiving and rapturous triumph in the Lord, reviving faith bestowing strength, (in verses 6, 7, 8)* and raising the anticipation of bright days approaching, when full "salvation" comes out of Zion (verse 9), and there shall be no more casting down. Every stream seems to flow onward to the future day when joy shall no more be pent up within narrow banks, but have unlimited scope—the people "saved" -the "blessing" come-there being no more curse-the heirs arrived at their inheritance, joint-heirs of Him who is "Heir of all things"-the shepherd leading them to living fountains. —and reproach all fled away!

We express the tone and substance of the Psalm if we describe it as-

The appeal and thanksgiving of the righteous as they view the tents of the ungodly.

* In verse 7 it is literally, "I will give praise to him from out of my song, as if it were a fountain. In verse 8, "The Lord is their strength." This mode of expression seems to be equivalent to "The strength of yonder ones," or, of such as possess the character just described. So in Psalm cxv. 9-11. Isa. xxxiii. 2. So also Psalm ix. 6 is to be explained, where, after addressing the foe directly, the Psalmist turns to those who stand by and sings," Their memorial is perished;" i. e., the memorial of such men as these.

PSALM XXIX.

A Psalm of David,

1 GIVE unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. 2 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name;

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord is upon the waters:

The God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters.

4 The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. 5 The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon,

6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf: Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

7 The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.

8 The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness;

The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests:

And in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.

10 The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever.
11 The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people
with peace.

Christ using it,

as well as his

people.

OUR attention is called seven times to the "voice of Jehovah," uttering majesty. The psalm presents such adoration as the Lord Jesus (himself " mighty God") could present to the Father, in the days of his flesh, when listening amid the hills round Nazareth, or at the foot of Lebanon by the sources of double-founted Jordan, to the voice of his Father's awful thunder. The redeemed, too, feel that such scenes furnish occasion for adoring the majesty and omnipotence of Godhead. At the same time, this seems to be more especially a Psalm of adora- The time. tion for that great and notable Day of the Lord, when the Lamb's song shall be sung. "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty-for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest,” (Psalm xv. 9). It is, in this view, a Psalm to, rather than for, our King. Dr Allix at once concludes, "This Psalm containeth an exhortation to all the princes of the world to submit themselves to the Messiah's empire, after he shall have re-established his people, and given as great proof of his vengeance on

his enemies as He did in the time of the Flood." In this last clause He alludes to verse 10, and to the true rendering of it, (Hengstenberg, &c.)

« The Lord at the Deluge sat,

"The Lord for ever sits, as King."

We might, no doubt, apply every clause of it to the Lord's display of his majesty in any tremendous thunder-storm. An awe-struck spectator cries as the lightnings play and the thunder rolls; "The God of Glory thundereth!" (ver. 5). "The voice of Jehovah is breaking the cedars!" and as the crash is heard, "The Lord has broken the cedars of Lebanon!" Travellers tell us of the solemnity and terrific force of storms in the East. But the thunders of the Great Day shall most of all call forth these strains to the Lord the King. Earth at large, and the heavens, too, shall shake on that day, when "the Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem," (Joel iii. 16); while Israel's land, from Lebanon on the north to Kadesh on the south, shall be in the vortex of · that storm. Meanwhile, secure as Noah in his ark, He and his redeemed witness the storm sweep along, beating down the wicked; and they burst into this song, (See Isaiah xxx. 32):

X

"Give unto the Lord, O ye sons of the mighty, (i.e., ye mighty ones ir heaven and earth),

"Give unto the Lord glory and strength."

“Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name." (Ver. 1, 2.)

Like the voice of much people in heaven heard by John Rev. xix. 1), saying,

" Alleluiah!

"Salvation and glory!

"And honour and power!

"Unto the Lord our God!"

followed up by the call "Praise our God-small and great," while the multitude who sing appear in their " fine linen, clean and white," corresponding to the description here (verse 2),

Worship the Lord in the beauties of Holiness”

in holy attire, in sanctuary array, in the beautiful robes of the