6 I called have on thee, O God, Because thou wilt me hear: That thou may'st hearken to my speech, 7 Thy wond'rous loving kindness show, Sav'st them that trust in thee, from those 10 In their own fat they are inclos'd: Verse 6. I have called upon thee, &c. An assurance to be heard is a chief encouragement to pray, and an experience of this is an inducement, to persevere in such exercise. The second clause is rendered, because thou hast heard me. The last clause is spoken after the manner of men, and conveys an obvious sense. Verse 7. Shew thy marvellous loving kindness, &c. Here is an appeal to the mercy of God, in the exercise of which he delights. The latter clause is rendered-Thou that savest them which put their trust in thee, from those that rose up at, or, against thy right hand, that is, such as oppose the divine counsels and dispensations; as Satan is said to have done to obstruct the building of the temple, Zech. iii. }. em Vers. 8, and 9. Keep me as the apple of the eye, &c. These two expressive images, the apple of the eye, the shadow, or covert of the wings, are ployed, Zech. ii. 8. and by our Lord, Matth. xxiii. 57; where they express God's tender care over his people, and the blessings that result from it. These the reader can easily conceive; only let him not confine them to a few; for a hen is disposed by instinct to perform what the latter implies, to nourish and protect her whole brood. The persons so defended and cherished must be secure and happy, and by faith enjoy the pleasure of knowing they shall be so. No enemy can really hurt those who are in such a case but let us ever shew as much sagacity as the chicken, that knows the mother's voice, and flies under her wing at her call. Verse 10. They are inclosed in their own fat; &c. The wicked, instead of valuing that blessing for which David prayed, substitute in it place their own fat, or riches, in which they ever trust as their strong city A noted expositor renders the verse-They have shut up their mouth will 11 Our steps they compass'd; and to ground Down bowing set their eye. 12 He like unto a lion is, That's greedy of his prey, Or lion young, which, lurking, doth In secret places stay. 13 Arise, and disappoint my foe, And cast him down, O LORD: 14 From men which are thy hand, O LORD, fat; they speak proudly. Pride abuses the bounties of 'Providence, hardens the heart against the fear of God, and the love of our fellow men, and so renders the proud insensible to his judgments, and to the state and sufferings of the poor. Verse 11. They have now compassed us, &c. Saul and his followers, who watched David's motions, and compassed him and his men in their steps. They set, or fixed their eyes upon them, to lay them prostrate on the earth, as some render it. So did the Jews treat our Lord, and such are our spiritual enemies, and such our danger, from their intention and aim; but our safety is in the Lord. Verse 12. Like as a lion, that is greedy of his prey, &c. Whether he roar in the forest, or couch in the thicket, his object is the same, ever seeking whom he may devour; in which respect he is a fit emblem of Satan, who to the lion's rage, adds the serpent's cunning. Verses 13, and 14. Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, &c. David intreats God to appear in his cause, and prevent the enemy in his wicked designs, whom he characterises as his sword, by which he often wounds his people for their good. But the clause may be rendered-Deliver my soul from the wicked by thy sword, from men, or mortals of the transitory world, as some render it, by thy hand, O LORD, The sword and hand of Jehovah will then intend his power and vengeance, by which he delivers his people, and punishes their enemies. As this is Messiah's official work, whom David owned as his Lord, we can have no right to transfer it to the Father, and by so doing would deny honour to whom it is due. Though God fills these men of the world with the gifts of his bounty, yet these are hid, produce no returns of gratitude, praise and obedience; for their hearts, insatiable as the grave, are strangers to such returns. Their dispositions and conduct are as abominable in God's sight, as food thrown out in the draught is in ours.-Though they may abound in wealth, and in children to whom they leave it, yet their wicked courses entail a curse Which only in this present life 15 But as for me, I thine own face And with thy likeness, when I wake, upon both, and render them and their posterity objects of pity, and net of envy. Their portion is said to be in this life, as they have none in that life which immediately succeeds it to the righteous. From such men, and their ways, Good Lord deliver us! Verse 15. As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness, &c. Instead of confiding in earthly things, as our supreme good, we are taught here to place all our happiness in the vision of God, and the righteousness which constitutes conformity to his moral image, and a meetness for his immediate presence. These words, as addressed to Messiah, will have a literal verification, as the saints in glory actually behold his face; but as addressed by him to the Father, in end that divine communion, immediate access, perfect knowledge, and intimate intercourse which the divine man, Christ Jesus, hath with Deity. In him all his people see and enjoy the Father. Our first thoughts in the morning should arise to him, and last at night, and whatever time we awake our hearts should arise to Christ, and affections center in him, who is the perfect likeness, and ineffable brightness of the Father. At death the spirits of good men awake from their almost dormant state in the body, and the hour is coming, when they shall awake, and arise in their complete person, after the divine similitude exhibited in our Lord, and to enjoy endless bliss in the immediate vision, and full fruition of him, and in the society of the blessed within the veil. There a fulness of joy will gratify every holy desire, and a glory exceeding that which is eternal, or connected with the ages of mediation, crown all their works of faith and labours of love. But in regard of wicked, then God shall despise their image, Ps. lxxiii. 20. Copying the exercise of David, and of his Lord, recorded in this psalm, let us console ourselves in the wilderness with these pleasing prospects. Having such exceeding great and precious promises and prospects presented to our faith, let us daily study purification from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, that we may thus attain perfect holiness in the fear of God. ་ར་རན“རར་་་༢ PSALM XVIII. THIS psalm occurs with a few small variations, 2 Sam. xxii. David wrote it towards the close of his reign and life, when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul. The sublimity of the figures, the consent of commentators, Jewish no less than Christian, and especially the quotations from it in the New Tes tament, all prove that Messiah's kingdom is here intended under the emblem of that of David. In him alone it receives its full completion and may fitly be viewed as a triumphal song, to celebrate his more glorious victories over all his enemies, who are finally to be subjected to his sway, and made willing subjects of his kingdom. It contains an expression of love to God, and confidence in his perfections-a description of very great distress, prayer for relief from it, and a sublime view of God's interposition for the deliverance of the illustrious sufferer.-Here Messiah's victories are represented as every way complete, by the destruction of all his enemies, which was effected for David, as a type, and by the submission of the nations to his sceptre, and the royal and priestly dominion of his people. For such events done, and to be more fully accomplished hereafter, God is blessed and praised. 1 THEE will I love, O LORD, my strength. 2 My fortress is the LORD, My rock, and he that doth to me Deliverance afford; My God, my strength, whom I will trust, A buckler unto me, The horn of my salvation, And my high tow'r, is he. NOTES ON PSALM XVIII. Verses 1, and 2. I will love thee, O LORD, my strength, &c. Though God is chiefly to be loved on account of what he is in himself, yet is he also to be loved and praised for what he is to his people, and does for them.. If the clause, in whom I trust, or as in the original-I will trust in him, is quoted Heb. ii. 13. as the margin there intimates, we are furnished with a clear proof that our Lord, to whom the sacred writer there applies it, is no less intended in the 18th psalm than in the 16th, and that David speaks in the one as well as in the other in the person of Christ, 3 Upon the LORD, who worthy is And then shall I preserved be 4 Floods of ill men affrighted me, Death's snares did me prévent. He from his temple heard my voice, 7 Th' earth, as affrighted, then did shake, The hills' foundations moved were, 8 Up from his nostrils came a smoke, Were turned into flame. 9 He also bowed down the heav'ns, And thickest clouds of darkness did Under his feet attend. Verse 3. I will, or did call on the Lord, &c. As the Psalmist gives thanks for deliverance received, the verbs here, as also in verse 6. are properly rendered by some in the past time. See James v. 13. The Verses 4, &c. The sorrows of death, &c. The word so rendered signifies cord or band, and also a pang, such as that of women in travail verbs to held, and loose, used in the quotation, Acts ii. 44. lead to the first sense, yet does the second refer to our Lord in his sufferings as travailing for the salvation of markind. By referring this sublime description to the solemn scene which took place at our Lord's resurrection, when the evangelists tell us, there was a great earthquake, ard Ly admitting the view given in cur note on Psal. xvi. 10. the reader will be able to form a judgment of the true import of this glorious prediction. That some of the images are borrowed from the |