Psalms 74 commentary

This psalm appears to describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Chaldeans. The deplorable case of the people of God, at the time, is spread before the Lord, and left with him. They plead the great things God had done for them. If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was encouragement to hope that he would not cast them off, much more reason have we to believe, that God will not cast off any whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood. Infidels and persecutors may silence faithful ministers, and shut up places of worship, and say they will destroy the people of God and their religion together. For a long time they may prosper in these attempts, and God's oppressed servants may see no prospect of deliverance; but there is a remnant of believers, the seed of a future harvest, and the despised church has survived those who once triumphed over her. When the power of enemies is most threatening, it is comfortable to flee to the power of God by earnest prayer.

The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes.

The psalmist begs that God would appear for the church against their enemies. The folly of such as revile his gospel and his servants will be plain to all. Let us call upon our God to enlighten the dark nations of the earth; and to rescue his people, that the poor and needy may praise his name. Blessed Saviour, thou art the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Make thy people more than conquerors. Be thou, Lord, all in all to them in every situation and circumstances; for then thy poor and needy people will praise thy name.

PSALM 74

The people of God in this psalm bewail the desolate condition of the Church, which was such that the very name of Israel was almost annihilated. It appears from their humble supplications that they impute to their own sins all the calamities which they endured; but at the same time they lay before God his own covenant by which he adopted the race of Abraham as his peculiar people. Afterwards they call to remembrance how mightily and gloriously he had in the days of old displayed his power in delivering his Church. Encouraging themselves from this consideration, they beseech Him that he would at length come to their aid, and remedy a state of matters so deplorable and desperate.

An instruction of Asaph.

The inscription משכיל, maskil, agrees very well with the subject of the psalm; for although it is sometimes applied to subjects of a joyful description, as we have seen in the forty-fifth psalm, yet it generally indicates that the subject treated of is the divine judgments, by which men are compelled to descend into themselves, and to examine their own sins, that they may humble themselves before God. It is easy to gather from the contents of the psalm, that its composition cannot be ascribed to David; for in his time there was no ground for mourning over such a wasted and calamitous condition of the Church as is here depicted. Those who are of a different opinion allege, that David by the spirit of prophecy foretold what had not yet come to pass. But as it is probable that there are many of the psalms which were composed by different authors after the death of David, this psalm, I have no doubt, is one of their number. What calamity is here spoken of, it is not easy precisely to determine. On this point there are two opinions. Some suppose that the reference is to that period of Jewish history when the city and the temple were destroyed, and when the people were carried away captives to Babylon under king Nebuchadnezzar; This is the opinion of Calmet, Poole, Wells, Mant, Walford, and others. “A melancholy occasion,” says Mant, “commemorated by an elegy of corresponding tenderness and plaintiveness. It would be difficult to name a finer specimen of elegiac poetry than this pathetic psalm of Asaph.” If it was composed during the Babylonish captivity, and if Asaph, whose name is in the title, was the author of it, he must have been a different person from David’s contemporary, previously noticed, (volume 2, page 257, note,) — probably a descendant of the same name and family. Dr Gill thinks that he was the Asaph of the time of David, and supposes that under the influence of the spirit of prophecy, he might speak of the sufferings of the Church in after ages, just as David and others testified before-hand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. and others, that it relates to the period when the temple was profaned, under Antiochus Epiphanes. There is some plausibility in both these opinions. From the fact that the faithful here complain of being now without signs and prophets, the latter opinion would seem the more probable; for it is well known that many prophets flourished when the people were carried into captivity. On the other hand, when it is said a little before that the sanctuaries were burnt to ashes, the carved works destroyed, and that nothing remained entire, these statements do not apply to the cruelty and tyranny of Antiochus. He indeed shamefully polluted the temple, by introducing into it heathen superstitions; but the building itself continued uninjured, and the timber and stones were not at that time consumed with fire. Some maintain that by sanctuaries we are to understand the synagogues in which the Jews were accustomed to hold their holy assemblies, not only at Jerusalem, but also in the other cities of Judea. It is also a supposable case, that the faithful beholding the awful desecration of the temple by Antiochus, were led from so melancholy a spectacle to carry their thoughts back to the time when it was burnt by the Chaldeans, and that they comprehend the two calamities in one description. Thus the conjecture will be more probable that these complaints belong to the time of Antiochus; Rosenmüller is of opinion that this is the period referred to. “For my part,” says Dr Geddes, “I think it must have been composed during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes; and the best commentary on it is the first chapter of the first book of Maccabees. The author may have been Mattathias.” for the Church of God was then without prophets. If, however, any would rather refer it to the Babylonish captivity, it will be an easy matter to solve this difficulty; for although Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, were then alive, yet we know that they were silent for a time, as if they had finished the course of their vocation, until at length Daniel, a little before the day of their deliverance, again came forth for the purpose of inspiring the poor exiles with courage to return to their own country. To this the prophet Isaiah seems to have an eye, when he says in the fortieth chapter (Isaiah 40:1) of his prophecies at the beginning, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, will your God say.” The verb, which is there in the future tense, shows that the prophets were enjoined to hold their peace for a time.

Psalm 74:1-8

1. O God! why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thy anger smoke against the flock of thy pastures? 2. Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed of old, the rod of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed, this mount Zion on which thou hast dwelt. 3. Lift up thy strokes to destroy for ever every enemy that worketh mischief to thy sanctuary. 4. Thy adversaries have roared “Ont rugi comme lions.” — Fr. “Have roared like lions.” in the midst of thy sanctuaries; they have set up their signs for signs. 5. He who lifted up the axes upon the thick trees was renowned as doing an excellent work. 6. And now they break in pieces the carved work thereof with axes and hammers together. 7. They have set on fire thy sanctuaries; they have polluted the dwelling-place of thy name, levelling it with the ground. 8. They have said in their heart, Let us destroy them all together: they have burned all the tabernacles of God in the land.

1. O God! why hast thou east us off for ever? If this complaint was written when the people were captives in Babylon, although Jeremiah had assigned the 70th year of their captivity as the period of their deliverance, it is not wonderful that waiting so long was to them a very bitter affliction, that they daily groaned under it, and that so protracted a period seemed to them like an eternity. As to those who were persecuted by the cruelty of Antiochus, they might, not without reason, complain of the wrath of God being perpetual, from their want of information as to any definite time when this persecution would terminate; and especially when they saw the cruelty of their enemies daily increasing without any hope of relief, and that their condition was constantly proceeding from bad to worse. Having been before this greatly reduced by the many disastrous wars, which their neighbors one after another had waged against them, they were now brought almost to the brink of utter destruction. It is to be observed, that the faithful, when persecuted by the heathen nations, lifted up their eyes to God, as if all the evils which they suffered had been inflicted by his hand alone. They were convinced, that had not God been angry with them, the heathen nations would not have been permitted to take such license in injuring them. Being persuaded, then, that they were not encountering merely the opposition of flesh and blood, but that they were afflicted by the just judgment of God, they direct their thoughts to the true cause of all their calamities, which was, that God, under whose favor they had formerly lived prosperous and happy, had cast them off, and deigned no longer to account them as his flock. The verb זנה, zanach, signifies to reject and detest, and sometimes also to withdraw one’s self to a distance. It is of no great moment in which of these senses it is here taken. We may consider the amount of what is stated as simply this, that whenever we are visited with adversities, these are not the arrows of fortune thrown against us at a venture, but the scourges or rods of God which, in his secret and mysterious providence, he prepares and makes use of for chastising our sins. Casting off and anger must here be referred to the apprehension or judgment of the flesh. Properly speaking, God is not angry with his elect, whose diseases he cures by afflictions as it were by medicines; but as the chastisements which we experience powerfully tend to produce in our minds apprehensions of his wrath, the Holy Spirit, by the word anger, admonishes the faithful to acknowledge their guilt in the presence of infinite purity. When, therefore, God executes his vengeance upon us, it is our duty seriously to reflect on what we have deserved, and to consider, that although He is not subject to the emotions of anger, yet it is not owing to us, who have grievously offended him by our sins, that his anger is not kindled against us. Moreover, his people, as a plea for obtaining mercy, flee to the remembrance of the covenant by which they were adopted to be his children. In calling themselves the flock of God’s pastures, they magnify his free choice of them by which they were separated from the Gentiles. This they express more plainly in the following verse.

PSALM 74

Psa 74:1-23. If the historical allusions of Psa 74:6-8, &c., be referred, as is probable, to the period of the captivity, the author was probably a descendant and namesake of Asaph, David's contemporary and singer (compare 2Ch 35:15; Ezr 2:41). He complains of God's desertion of His Church, and appeals for aid, encouraging himself by recounting some of God's mighty deeds, and urges his prayer on the ground of God's covenant relation to His people, and the wickedness of His and their common enemy.

1. cast ... off--with abhorrence (compare Psa 43:2; 44:9). There is no disavowal of guilt implied. The figure of fire to denote God's anger is often used; and here, and in De 29:20, by the word "smoke," suggests its continuance.

sheep ... pasture--(Compare Psa 80:1; 95:7).

2. The terms to denote God's relation to His people increase in force: "congregation"--"purchased"--"redeemed"--"Zion," His dwelling.

3. Lift ... feet--(Ge 29:1)--that is, Come (to behold) the desolations (Psa 73:19).

4. roar--with bestial fury.

congregations--literally, "worshipping assemblies."

ensigns--literally, "signs"--substituted their idolatrous objects, or tokens of authority, for those articles of the temple which denoted God's presence.

5-6. Though some terms and clauses here are very obscure, the general sense is that the spoilers destroyed the beauties of the temple with the violence of woodmen.

was famous--literally, "was known."

7. defiled--or, "profaned," as in Psa 89:39.

8. together--at once, all alike.

synagogues--literally, "assemblies," for places of assembly, whether such as schools of the prophets (2Ki 4:23), or "synagogues" in the usual sense, there is much doubt.

9. signs--of God's presence, as altar, ark, &c. (compare Psa 74:4; 2Ch 36:18, 19; Da 5:2).

no more any prophet--(Is 3:2; Jr 40:1; 43:6).

how long--this is to last. Jeremiah's prophecy (Jr 25:11), if published, may not have been generally known or understood. To the bulk of the people, during the captivity, the occasional and local prophetical services of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel would not make an exception to the clause, "there is no more any prophet."

10. (Compare Psa 31:1).

how long ... reproach?--us, as deserted of God.

blaspheme thy name--or, "perfections," as power, goodness, &c. (Psa 29:2).

11. Why cease to help us? (Compare Psa 3:7; 7:6; 60:5).

12. For--literally, "And," in an adversative sense.

13-15. Examples of the "salvation wrought" are cited.

divide the sea--that is, Red Sea.

brakest ... waters--Pharaoh and his host (compare Is 51:9, 10; Eze 29:3, 4).

16-17. The fixed orders of nature and bounds of earth are of God.

18. (Compare Psa 74:10; De 32:6). The contrast is striking--that such a God should be thus insulted!

19. multitude--literally, "beast," their flock or company of men (Psa 68:10).

turtledove--that is, the meek and lonely Church.

congregation--literally, "the company," as above--thus the Church is represented as the spoiled and defeated remnant of an army, exposed to violence.

20. And the prevalence of injustice in heathen lands is a reason for invoking God's regard to His promise (compare Nu 14:21; Psa 7:16; 18:48).

21. oppressed--broken (Psa 9:9).

return--from seeking God.

ashamed--(Psa 35:4).

22-23. (Compare Psa 3:7; 7:6). God hears the wicked to their own ruin (Ge 4:10; 18:20).

O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? - Hast thou determined that we shall never more be thy people? Are we never to see an end to our calamities?

Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old - We are the descendants of that people whom thou didst take unto thyself; the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Wilt thou never more be reconciled to us?

Lift up thy feet - Arise, and return to us, our desolations still continue. Thy sanctuary is profaned by thine and our enemies.

Thine enemies roar - Thy people, who were formerly a distinct and separate people, and who would not even touch a Gentile, are now obliged to mingle with the most profane. Their boisterous mirth, their cruel mockings, their insulting commands, are heard every where in all our assemblies.

They set up their ensigns for signs - שמו אותתם אתות samu othotham othoth, they set up their standards in the place of ours. All the ensigns and trophies were those of our enemies; our own were no longer to be seen.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh verses give a correct historical account of the ravages committed by the Babylonians, as we may see from 2Kgs 25:4, 2Kgs 25:7-9, and Jer 52:7, Jer 52:18, Jer 52:19 : "And the city was broken up, and all the men fled by night by the way of the gate. They took Zedekiah, and slew his sons before his eyes; and put out his eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon. And on the second day of the fifth month of the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, came unto Jerusalem; and he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and every great man's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem burnt he with fire. And they broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about. And the pillars of brass and the bases, and the brazen sea, they broke in pieces, and carried the brass to Babylon. And the pots, shovels, snuffers and spoons, and the fire pans and bowls, and such things as were of gold and silver, they took away." Thus they broke down, and carried away, and destroyed this beautiful house; and in the true barbarian spirit, neither sanctity, beauty, symmetry, nor elegance of workmanship, was any thing in their eyes. What hammers and axes could ruin, was ruined; Jerusalem was totally destroyed, and its walls laid level with the ground. Well might the psalmist sigh over such a desolation.

Let us destroy them - Their object was totally to annihilate the political existence of the Jewish people.

They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land - It is supposed that there were no synagogues in the land till after the Babylonish captivity. How then could the Chaldeans burn up any in Judea? The word מועדי moadey, which we translate synagogues, may be taken in a more general sense, and mean any places where religious assemblies were held: and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity, is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture. It appears that Elisha kept such at his house on the sabbaths and new moons. See 2Kgs 4:23. And perhaps to such St. James may refer, Act 15:23, a species of synagogues, where the law was read of old, in every city of the land. And it appears that such religious meetings were held at the house of the Prophet Ezekiel, Eze 33:31. And perhaps every prophet's house was such. This is the only place in the Old Testament where we have the word synagogue. Indeed, wherever there was a place in which God met with patriarch or prophet, and any memorial of it was preserved, there was a מועד moed, or place of religious meeting; and all such places the Chaldeans would destroy, pursuant to their design to extinguish the Jewish religion, and blot out all its memorials from the earth. And this was certainly the most likely means to effect their purpose. How soon would Christianity be destroyed in England if all the churches, chapels, and places of worship were destroyed, and only the poor of the people left in the land; who, from their circumstances, could not build a place for the worship of God! After such desolation, what a miracle was the restoration of the Jews!

We see not our signs - "They have taken away all our trophies, and have left us no memorial that God has been among us. Even thou thyself hast left us destitute of all those supernatural evidences that have so often convinced us that thou wert among us of a truth." But we may say that they were not totally destitute even of these. The preservation of Daniel in the lion's den, and of the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace; the metamorphosis of Nebuchadnezzar; the handwriting that appeared to Belshazzar; were all so many prodigies and evidences that God had not left them without proofs of his being and his regard.

There is no more any prophet - There was not one among them in that place that could tell them how long that captivity was yet to endure. But there were prophets in the captivity. Daniel was one; but his prophecies were confined to one place. Ezekiel was another, but he was among those captives who were by the river Chebar. They had not, as usual, prophets who went to and fro through the land, preaching repentance and remission of sins.

Why withdrawest thou thy hand - It has been remarked, that as the outward habit of the easterns had no sleeves, the hands and arms were frequently covered with the folds of the robe; and in order to do any thing, the hand must be disentangled and drawn out. The literal version of the Hebrew is: "To what time wilt thou draw back thy hand; yea, thy right hand, from within thy bosom?" Consomme; that is, manifest thy power, and destroy thy adversaries. I have, in the introduction to the book of Psalms, spoken of the old metrical version by Sternhold and Hopkins, and have stated that it was formed from the original text. A proof of this may be seen by the learned reader in this and the preceding verse; where, though their version is harsh, and some of their expressions quaint almost to ridicule, yet they have hit the true mean ing which our prose translators have missed: - Psa 74:10 When wilt thou once, Lord, end this shame,And cease thine en'mies strong?Shall they always blaspheme thy name,And rail on thee so long? Psa 74:11 Why dost thou draw thy hand aback,And hide it in thy lap?O pluck it out, and be not slackTo give thy foes a rap!

For God is my King of old - We have always acknowledged thee as our sovereign; and thou hast reigned as a king in the midst of our land, dispensing salvation and deliverance from the center to every part of the circumference.

Thou didst divide the sea - When our fathers came from Egypt.

Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters - Pharaoh, his captains, and all his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, when attempting to pursue them.

The heads of leviathan - Leviathan might be intended here as a personification of the Egypttan government; and its heads, Pharaoh and his chief captains.

To the people inhabiting the wilderness - Probably meaning the birds and beasts of prey. These were the people of the wilderness, which fed on the dead bodies of the Egyptians, which the tides had cast ashore. The Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Arabic read, "Thou hast given him for meat to the Ethiopians," or Abyssinians.

Thou didst cleave the fountain - Thou didst cleave the rock in the wilderness, of which all the congregation drank.

Thou driedst up mighty rivers - Does not this refer to the cutting off the waters of the Jordan, so that the people passed over dryshod?

The day is thine, the night also is thine - Thou art the Author of light, and of the sun, which is the means of dispensing it.

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth - Thou alone art the Author of all its grand geographical divisions.

Thou hast made summer and winter - Thou hast appointed that peculiarity in the poise and rotation of the earth, by which the seasons are produced.

Remember this - The heathen not only deny these things, but give the honor of them to their false gods, and thus blaspheme thy name.

Deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove - Thy people Israel are helpless, defenceless, miserable, and afflicted: O deliver them no longer into the power of their brutal adversaries.

Have respect unto the covenant - הבט לברית habbet labberith. Pay attention to the covenant sacrifice; to that offered by Abraham, Gen 15:9, etc., when the contracting parties, God and Abram, passed through between the separated parts of the covenant sacrifice. An indisputable type of Jesus Christ; and of God and man meeting in his sacrificed humanity.

The dark places of the earth - The caves, dens, woods, etc., of the land are full of robbers, cut-throats, and murderers, who are continually destroying thy people, so that the holy seed seems as if it would be entirely cut off and the covenant promise thus be rendered void.

The words may either apply to Chaldea or Judea. Judea was at this time little else than a den of robbers, its own natural inhabitants being removed. Chaldea was infested with hordes of banditti also.

Let not the oppressed return ashamed - Do not permit thy people to be so diminished, that when, according to thy promise, they are restored to their own land, they may appear to be but a handful of men.

Plead thine own cause - Thy honor is concerned, as well as our safety and salvation. The fool - the idolater, reproacheth thee daily - he boasts of the superiority of his idols, by whose power, he asserts, we are brought under their domination.

Forget not the voice - While we pray to thee for our own salvation, we call upon thee to vindicate thy injured honor: and let all the nations see that thou lovest thy followers, and hatest those who are thy enemies. Let not man prevail against thee or thine.

Thy congregation - Thy people. Thine inheritance - The tribe of Judah, which thou hast in a special manner chosen for thine inheritance, and for the birth of the Messiah. Nor is it strange that he mentions this tribe particularly, because the calamity here remembered, did principally befal this tribe, and Benjamin, which was united with it.

Lift up - Come speedily to our rescue. Because - Because otherwise our destruction is irrecoverable.

Roar - In a way of triumph. Midst, &c. - In the places where thy people used to assemble for thy worship. Set up - Monuments of their victory.

Famous - The temple was so noble a structure, that it was a great honour to any man to be employed in the meanest part of the work, though it were but in cutting down the trees of Lebanon.

Axes and hammers - These words are not Hebrew, but Chaldee or Syriack, to point out the time when this was done, even when the Chaldeans brought in their language, together with their arms, among the Israelites.

Destroy them - All at once. So they intended, although afterwards they changed their council, and carried some away captive. Burnt up - All the public places wherein the Jews used to meet together to worship God every sabbath - day.

Signs - Those tokens of God's gracious presence, which we used to enjoy. The temple and ark, and sacrifices, and solemn feasts, were signs between God and his people. Prophet - Who can foretell things to come. Probably Ezekiel and Jeremiah were dead when this psalm was composed; and David was involved in civil affairs, and did not teach the people as a prophet. Knoweth - How long their captivity should continue.

Why - Why dost thou forebear the exercise of thy power? Bosom - In which thou now seemest to hide it.

King - It belongs therefore to thy office to protect and save me. Midst - In the view of the world.

Dragons - He means Pharaoh and his mighty men.

Leviathan - Pharaoh. The people - To the ravenous birds and beasts of the desert. These creatures are significantly called the people of the wilderness, because they are the only people that inhabit it.

The flood - Thou didst by cleaving the rock, make a fountain and a stream to flow from it, for the refreshment of thy people in those dry deserts. Driedst - Jordan and the Red Sea; for the sea itself; yea, a greater sea than that, is called a river, Jonah 2:3, where the Hebrew word is the same which is here used. And the same title is expressly given to the sea, by Homer, and other ancient writers.

The light - The moon, the lesser light.

Set - Thou hast fixed the bounds of the habitable world in general, and of all the countries and people upon the earth. And as this clause shews God's power over all places, so the next displays his dominion over all times and seasons.

Remember - Though we deserve to be forgotten, yet do not suffer our enemies to reproach the name of the great and glorious God.

Soul - The life. Turtle - dove - Of thy church, which is fitly compared to a turtle - dove, because simple and harmless, and meek, and faithful.

The covenant - Made with Abraham, whereby thou didst give the land of Canaan to him, and to his seed for ever. Dark places - This dark and dismal land in which we live.

Return - From the throne of thy grace, to which they make their resort.

1 O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever ? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture .

So as to leave us no visible Hopes of Restitution.

Or thy Nose. A Metaphor from a man who in a great Rage sends forth Fumes out of his Nostrils.

Against the chosen and peculiar People.

Marginal references: Psal. 95. 7▪

2 Remember thy congregation , which thou hast purchased of old : the rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed, this mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelt.

Shew by thine Actions, that thou hast not utterly forgotten and forsaken them.

Thy Church or People.

Or, Redeemed, as it follows; Or bought, as it is Deut. 32. 6. or procured, though without Price, as this Word is used, Ruth 4. 9, 10.

When thou broughtest them out of Egypt, and formedst them into a Common-wealth, and gavest them Laws, and didst enter into Covenant with them at Sinai[illegible: 1+ letters]

That people which thou hast measured out, as it were by Rod, to be thy Portion or Inheritance, as they are called also, Deut. 32. 9. See also, Psal. 16. 5, 6. Ier. 10. 16. Or, the Tribe (as this Word commonly signifies) of thine Inheritance, (i. e.) The Tribe of Iudah, which thou hast in a special manner chosen for thine Inheritance, and for the seat of the Kingdom, and for the Birth of the Messiah. And thus here is an Elegant Gradation from the general to particulars; First, the Congregation consisting of all the Tribes; then the Tribe of Iudah; and Lastly, Mount Zion. No[illegible: 1+ letters] is it strange, that he mentions this Tribe particularly, because the Calamity and Captivity here remembred, did principally be[illegible: 1+ letters]al this Tribe, and Benjamin, which was united with it, and subject to it, and the most that returned were of this Tribe: For the generality of the other Tribes, were long before dispersed into other Lands, and continue in their Captivity, to this day.

Which is oft put for the Temple, or the Hill of Moriah, on which it was built:

Marginal references: Or, Tribe▪

3 Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations : even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary .

(i. e.) Come speedily for our rescue, and do not sit or stand still, as hitherto thou seemest to do.

Or rather, Because of (as this Prefix oft signifies) the perpetual Desolations. So it is a powerful Motive to God, to come to their Help, because otherwise our Destruction is everlasting and irrecoverable.

Or, against thy Sanctuary: Of which see v. 7.

4 Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations , they set up their insigns for signs .

(i. e.) Make loud Out-cries; Either, from their Rage and Fu[illegible: 1+ letters]y, against the Conquered and captivated Israelites now in their Power: Or rather, in way of Triumph for their Success and Victory.

In the places where thy People used to assemble together for thy Worship; whereby they designed to insult not onely over us, but over thee also, as if their God's had been too strong for thee.

Or, Trophees, or Monuments of their Victories obtained over God, and over his People, as Conquerors used to do in like Cases.

5 A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees .

So the meaning is this, The Temple was so noble a structure, that it was a great Honour to any man to be imployed in the meanest part of the work, though it were but in cutting down the Trees of Lebanon. And this Translation may seem to be favoured by the opposition in the next Verse; But now, &c. But others understand the Words thus translated in another Sence: That every one of the Enemies got Renown, accordingly as they shewed most barbarous Rage in destroying the thick Wood-work (which in the next Verse is called the Carved work) of the Temple. But this seems not to suit well with the opposition between this work and that of the next Verse, which is ushered in by, But now. The words therefore may be (and in part are by some) rendred thus; It is known (or manifest, Heb. It will be known: It will be published to all Posterity, as matter of astonishment and admiration.) That, as one lifteth up his Axe (Heb. Axes, the plural Number for the singular, as it is elsewhere) upon thick Trees, to cut them down. This is the first part of the similitude, called the Pro[illegible: 1+ letters]asis; Then follows the latter part of it, called the Apodosis, in the next Verse; So (Heb. And. Which is sometimes put for a Note of similitude, as in that passage of the Lords Prayer, Mat. 6. 10. as it is in Heaven; and oft in the Book of the Proverbs) now (For though this Psalm was Composed after the thing was done, yet he speaks of it, as if it were now in doing, as the manner of the sacred Writers frequently is, that it may be more Lively represented to mens Minds) They break down the Carved work▪ &c. The meaning is, they neither regard the Sacredness of the place, no[illegible: 1+ letters] the exquisite Curiosity and Art of the work, but cut it down as indifferently, and rashly, as men cut down the thick and intangled boughs of the Trees of the Forest.

6 But now they break down the carved work thereof at once , with axes and hammers .

See the Note on the former Verse.

It hath been ingeniously observed, that these two Words are no[illegible: 1+ letters] Hebrew, but Chaldee or Syriack, Words, to point out the time when this was done, even when the Chaldaeans brought in their Language together with their Arms among the Israelites.

7 They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground .

First, they polluted it, and then they burnt it, and broke it in pieces.

Marginal references: 2 Kin. 25. 9.; Heb. They have sent thy Sanctuary into the Fire.

8 They said in their heart, Let us destroy them together x, they have burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land .

(i. e.) All the publick places wherein the Iews used to meet together to Worship God, every Sabbath day, as is noted, A[illegible: 1+ letters]t. 13. 27. and upon other occasions. That the Iews had such Synagogues, is manifest both from these and other places of Scripture; and from the Testimony of the Hebrew Doctors, and other Antient and learned Writers, who affirm it, and particularly of Ierusalem, in which they say there were above four hundred Synagogues; and from the Nature and necessity of the thing: For seeing it is undeniable that they did Worship God publickly, in every Sabbath, and other Holy times, even then when they neither did, nor could go up to Ierusalem, both Conscience and Prudence must needs direct them to appoint Convenient places for that purpose.

ae Root and Branch, one as well as another, or all at once. So they desired, and many of them intended, although afterwards, it seems, they changed their Counsel, and carried some away Captives, and left others to manage the Land.

Marginal references: Heb. Break.

9 We see not our signs , there is no more any prophet , neither is there among us any that knoweth how long .

(i. e.) Those Tokens of God's gracious Presence, which we and our Ancestors formerly used to enjoy; Either, 1. Miracles wrought for us, which are called Signs, Psal. 78. 43. and 135. 9. Or, 2. The Ordinances of God, the Temple and Ark, and Sacrifices, and solemn Feasts, all which were signs between God and his People.

Either, 1. Any Teacher. We have few or no Teachers left to us: Or, 2. Any extraordinary Prophet, who can foretel things to come, as the next Words explain it. For as for Ezekiel and Ieremiah, they might be dead when this Psalm was Composed; and Daniel was involved in Civil affairs, and did not teach the People as a Prophet, and the prophetical Spirit, which sometimes came upon him, and made those great discoveries to him, which we read in his Book, might possibly at this time suspend his influences. Besides it is not unusual in Scripture, to say that there is none of a sort of Persons or Things, when there is a very great scarcity of them. But others make this their great Argument, that this Psalm speaks of that Persecution in the time of Antiochus, when indeed there was no Prophet at all.

Either, 1. How long their Captivity should continue: For though seventy years were determined, yet there might arise doubts among them, as there now are among us, whence they were to be Computed, which might make their [illegible: 1+ letters]nd uncertain. Or, 2. How long they should lye under Reproach, as it follows v. 10. Which they really did, and might foresee that they should, even after the Expiration of their Captivity, Nehem. 1. 3.

Marginal references: 1 Sam. 3. 1. Amos 8. 11.▪

10 O God, how long shall the adversary reproach ? shall the enemy blaspheme thy Name for ever?

Understand here thy Name, which is expressed in the next Clause of the Verse, by saying that thou art either unkind to thy People, or unfaithful in thy Covenant, or unable to deliver thine out of their Miseries.

11 Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand ? pluck it out of thy bosom .

Why dost thou suspend or forbear the exercise of that Power, which thou hast so o[illegible: 1+ letters]t put forth on the behalf of thy People?

In which t[illegible: 1+ letters]ou now seemest to hide it, as idle Persons use to do, Prov. 19. 24. and 26. 15.—Bestir thy self on the behalf of thy People.

12 For God is my king of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth .

In a singular manner: It belongs therefore to thine Office to protect and save me.

In the view of the World: So saving thy People, so Eminently and Gloriously, that all people round about them observed and admired it.

Marginal references: Psal. 44. 4.

13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters .

Or, the Crocodiles. He means Pharaoh and all his mighty Men, who were like these Beasts in strength and Cruelty.

To wit, of the Sea, where they were drowned.

Marginal references: Exod. 14. 21.; Heb. Break.; Or, [illegible: 1+ letters]hales.

14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness .

(i. e.) The hard, called Heads▪ Partly, for the greatness of this Beast, as that great Monster is called Beas[illegible: 1+ letters]s, Iob 40. 20. for the same Reason; and Partly, for the several Heads or Princes, who were and Acted under his influence.

Pharaoh.

Heb. To the People in, or of the Desert; Either, 1. To the Israelites, then in the Wilderness, to whom the Destruction of Pharaoh and his Host, was Meat, (i. e.) Matter of great support and Refreshment. Or, 2. To those Savage people, to whom they were Meat; because they lived upon Fishes, and might eat those very Fishes which had devoured Ph[illegible: 1+ letters]raoh's Host in the bottom of the Sea. Or rather, 3. To those Ravenous Birds and Beasts of the Desert, which after their manner, [illegible: 1+ letters]ed and feasted themselves upon the Carcasses of the Egyptians, who were cast upon the Sea-shore, Exod. 14. 30. which were Properly and immediately Meat unto them. And when words can be taken Properly, we ought to prefer that before the Metaphorical Sence, as is agreed by Interpreters. And this was a very suitable Punishment for this Proud and insolent People, that they who were so haughty, that they▪ would not own nor submit to the Lord himself▪ Exod. 5. 2. should be de[illegible: 1+ letters]oured by these Contemptible Creatures, which was a great Reproach, 1 Sam. 17. 44. 46. and [illegible: 1+ letters]ft threatned by God, as a grievous Curse, as [illegible: 1 word]. 28. 26. [illegible: 1 word]. 7. 33. and 16. 4. &c. Neither let any think it strange, that the Name of People is given to these Creatures, for it is given to Connies, Grashoppers, Pismires, &c▪ both in Scripture, as Prov. 30. 25, 26. Ioel 1. 6. and in H[illegible: 1+ letters]r, and other Antient profane Writers. Nay, here is an Elegancy in the Expression; for these Creatures are significantly called the People of the wilderness, because they are the onely People that inhabited it, this being a Wilderness wherein was no Man, as is said, Iob. 38. 26.

15 Thou didst cleave the [illegible: 1+ letters]ountain and the flood , thou driedst up mighty rivers .

(i. e.) Thou didst by cleaving the Rock, make a Fountain in it, and a flood or stream to flow from it, for the Refreshment of thy People, in those dry Deserts. The Phrase is like that Isa. 47. 2. Grind meal, (i. e.) By grinding the Corn, make Meal.

Either, 1. Iordan, which was then more mighty than ordinarily, as having overflowed all his Banks, and therefore may be called Rivers, because [illegible: 1+ letters]t was now Equivalent to two or three such Rivers; or it is onely an Enallage of the plural Number for the singular, whereof I have given many instances formerly. Or rather, 2. Both Iordan and the Red Sea; for the Sea it self; yea, a greater Sea than that, is called a River, Ionah 2. 3. for the Hebrew word is the same which is here used, though there it be rendred Floods. An[illegible: 1+ letters] the same Title is expresly given to the Sea, by [illegible: 1 word] and other antient Writers. To these the Antient Chaldee Interpreter, addeth the Rivers of Arnon and Iabbok, in or about which some extraordinary work was wrought, yea something which was like God's work at the Red Sea, as may seem by the Conjunction of these together, Numb. 21. 14.

Marginal references: Exod. 17. 5▪ Numb. 20. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ Psal. 105. 41. Isa. 4[illegible: 1+ letters]. 21.; Josh. 3. 13.; Heb. Rivers of strength.

16 The day is thine, the night also is thine : thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

It is not strange, no[illegible: 1+ letters] incredible that thou hast done these great and wonderful Works, for thou [illegible: 1+ letters]ast made the Heavenly bodies, and the Vicissitudes of day and night, depending upon them, which is a fa[illegible: 1+ letters] greater work.

Or rather, Established, as this word o[illegible: 1+ letters]t signifies; not onely Created, but settled in a constant and orderly Course.

Either, 1. That Primitive light, Gen. 1. 3. which afterwards was condensed and gathered into the Sun. Or rather, 2. The Moon, as divers, both Antient and Modern Interpreters understand it, called here the Light, to wit, the lesser Luminary or Light; wherein there is either, a Synecdoche of the general for the particular, or an Ellipsis of the Adjective, both which Figures are very usual. And that the lesser Light is here meant, may seem probable both, because it is opposed to the greater Light, the Sun here following; and because this is to rule the Night, as the Sun is to rule the Day, Gen. 1. 16. and so this Clause answereth to, and explaineth the former wherein both Day and Night are mentioned.

Marginal references: Heb. a [illegible: 1 word] ▪ [illegible: 1 word], and the S[illegible: 1+ letters]n.

17 Thou hast set all the borders of the earth : thou hast made summer and winter.

Thou hast fixed the bounds, both of the habitable World in general, so as the Seas, though they do encompass and assault them, yet they shall never be able to remove them, and of all the Countries and People upon Earth, whom thou hast confined to such bounds as thou see[illegible: 1+ letters] fit. And as this Clause of the Verse, sheweth God's Power and Government over all places, so the next Clause displays his Dominion over all times and seasons. And both together are fitly alledged as a Motive to God, that he would at this time take Care of his poor People, and restore them to their antient Land and Borders, in which he had been pleased to set them.

Marginal references: Heb. mad[illegible: 1+ letters] them.

18 Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached thee, O LORD , and that foolish people have blasphemed thy name.

Though we deserve to be forgotten and destroyed, yet Remember thy self, and do not suffer thine and our Enemies to Reproach, and Blaspheme the Name of that great and glorious God, the Creator and Soveraign Lord of the whole World, whom they ought always to Reverence and adore.

Who, though they think themselves, and are thought by others to be wise, yet in truth are Fools, and herein shew their stupendious folly, that they vilisie and provoke that God, whose powerful Anger they can neither resist, nor escape, nor endure.

Marginal references: Vet. [illegible: 1 word] ▪

19 O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked , forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.

(i. e.) The Life; Thou hast delivered thy People into Captivity: do not deliver them to Death, nor suffer their Enemies utterly to destroy them.

(i. e.) Of thy Church, which is fitly Compared to a Turtle Dove, because of the great resemblance of their Dispositions and Conditions, being s[illegible: 1+ letters]ple and harmless, and meek, and faithful, and mournful, and exposed to manifold Injuries, and unable to defend its self from them.

Or, to the wild Beast, as this Word oft signifies. Or, to the Troop, to wit, of her Enemies.

Marginal references: Or, unto the wild Beasts. So Gr.

20 Have respect unto the covenant , for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty .

Made with Abraham, whereby thou didst give the Land of Canaan to him, and to his seed for ever, and thou didst further promise, that if thy People were carried Captive into strange Lands, and did there humble themselves, and Pray and turn unto thee, thou wouldst mercifully restore them, 1 Kings 8. 46, 47, 48, 49. 50. Do thou therefore now restore us to that pleasant and lightsome Land, which thou hast given to us.

(i. e.) This dark and dismal Land in which we Live, wherein there is nothing but Ignorance and Confusion, and all the Works of darkness. Of which the Psalmist speaks in general Terms, out of a Principle of Prudence; because the particular designation of the place was unnecessary, and might have been of ill Consequence.

Here is nothing but Injustice and Oppression, and Tyranny, under which we groan in all the parts of this great Empire, where we have our abode.

21 O let not the oppressed return ashamed, let the poor and needy praise thy name.

From thee, and from the Throne of thy Grace, to which they make their Resort, in this their distressed Condition.

22 Arise, O God, plead thine own cause , remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily.

Maintain thy Honour and Worship, and Service against those that reproach thee, as it here follows, and was noted before, v. 10. 18. As we are reviled and Persecuted for thy [illegible: 1+ letters]ake; so thou art injured in all our wrongs.

Marginal references: Ver. 18.

23 Forget not the voyce of thine enemies, the tumult of those that rise up against thee encreaseth continually.

Their insulting and reproachful Expressions against thee, as well as against us.

(i. e.) The tumultuous noise, or the loud Clamours.

Heb. ascendeth, to wit, into Heaven, being either directed thither by them; their Mouths being set against Heaven, as theirs was, Psal. 73. 9. or at least being perceived there by God, whose Ears were pierced with the loud Cry of their sins. See Gen. 4. 10. and 18. 20. Or ascending, may be here put for increasing, as it is, Isa. 55. 13. Ier. 46. 7. So the Sence is; They grow worse and worse, encouraging and hardning themselves in their wicked Courses, by their continual Success and Prosperity, and by thy Patience extended to them.

Marginal references: Heb. ascendeth. 1 Sam. 5. 12.

Psa 74:1-3

The poet begins with the earnest prayer that God would again have compassion upon His church, upon which His judgment of anger has fallen, and would again set up the ruins of Zion. Why for ever (Psa 74:10, Psa 79:5; Psa 89:47, cf. Psa 13:2)? is equivalent to, why so continually and, as it seems, without end? The preterite denotes the act of casting off, the future, Psa 74:1, that lasting condition of this casting off. למה, when the initial of the following word is a guttural, and particularly if it has a merely half-vowel (although in other instances also, Gen 12:19; Gen 27:45; Sol 1:7), is deprived of its Dagesh and accented on the ultima, in order (as Mose ha-Nakdan expressly observes) to guard against the swallowing up of the ah; cf. on Psa 10:1. Concerning the smoking of anger, vid., Psa 18:9. The characteristically Asaphic expression צאן מרעיתו is not less Jeremianic, Jer 23:1. In Psa 74:2 God is reminded of what He has once done for the congregation of His people. קדם, as in Psa 44:2, points back into the Mosaic time of old, to the redemption out of Egypt, which is represented in קנה (Exo 15:17) as a purchasing, and in גאל (Psa 77:15; Psa 78:35, Exo 15:13) as a ransoming (redemptio). שׁבט נחלתך is a factitive object; שׁבט is the name given to the whole nation in its distinctness of race from other peoples, as in Jer 10:16; Jer 51:19, cf. Isa 63:17. זה (Psa 74:2) is rightly separated from הר־ציון (Mugrash); it stands directly for אשׁר, as in Psa 104:8, Psa 104:26; Pro 23:22; Job 15:17 (Ges. §122, 2). The congregation of the people and its central abode are, as though forgotten of God, in a condition which sadly contrasts with their election. משּׁאות נצח are ruins (vid., Psa 73:18) in a state of such total destruction, that all hope of their restoration vanishes before it; נצח here looks forward, just as עולם (חרבות), Isa 63:12; Psa 61:4, looks backwards. May God then lift His feet up high (פּעמים poetical for רגלים, cf. Psa 58:11 with Psa 68:24), i.e., with long hurried steps, without stopping, move towards His dwelling - lace that now lies in ruins, that by virtue of His interposition it may rise again. Hath the enemy made merciless havoc - he hath ill-treated (הרע, as in Psa 44:3) everything (כּל, as in Psa 8:7, Zep 1:2, for חכּל or את־כּל) in the sanctuary - how is it possible that this sacrilegious vandalism should remain unpunished!

Psa 74:4-8

The poet now more minutely describes how the enemy has gone on. Since קדשׁ in Psa 74:3 is the Temple, מועדיך in Psa 74:4 ought likewise to mean the Temple with reference to the several courts; but the plural would here (cf. Psa 74:8) be misleading, and is, too, only a various reading. Baer has rightly decided in favour of מועדך;The reading מעודיך is received, e.g., by Elias Hutter and Nissel; the Targum translates it, Kimchi follows it in his interpretation, and Abraham of Zante follows it in his paraphrase; it is tolerably widely known, but, according to the lxx and Syriac versions and MSS, it is to be rejected. מועד, as in Lam 2:6., is the instituted (Num 17:1-13 :19 [4]) place of God’s intercourse with His congregation (cf. Arab. mı̂‛âd, a rendezvous). What Jeremiah says in Lam 2:7 (cf. שׁאג, Jer 2:15) is here more briefly expressed. By אותתם (Psa 74:4) we must not understand military insignia; the scene of the Temple and the supplanting of the Israelitish national insignia to be found there, by the substitution of other insignia, requires that the word should have the religious reference in which it is used of circumcision and of the Sabbath (Exo 31:13); such heathen אתות, which were thrust upon the Temple and the congregation of Jahve as henceforth the lawful ones, were those which are set forth in 1 Macc. 1:45-49, and more particularly the so-called abomination of desolation mentioned in v. 54 of the same chapter. With יוּדע (Psa 74:5) the terrible scene which was at that time taking place before their eyes (Psa 79:10) is introduced. כּמביא is the subject; it became visible, tangible, noticeable, i.e., it looked, and one experienced it, as if a man caused the axe to enter into the thicket of the wood, i.e., struck into or at it right and left. The plural קדּמּות forces itself into the simile because it is the many heathen warriors who are, as in Jer 46:22., likened to these hewers of wood. Norzi calls the Kametz of בסבך־עץ Kametz chatuph; the combining form would then be a contraction of סבך (Ewald, Olshausen), for the long ā of סבך does not admit of any contraction. According to another view it is to be read bi - sbāch - etz, as in Est 4:8 kethāb - hadāth with counter-tone Metheg beside the long vowel, as e.g., עץ־הגּן, Gen 2:16). The poet follows the work of destruction up to the destroying stroke, which is introduced by the ועת (perhaps ועת, Kerî ועתּה), which arrests one’s attention. In Psa 74:5 the usual, unbroken quiet is depicted, as is the heavy Cyclopean labour in the Virgilian illi inter sese, etc.; in jahalomûn, Psa 74:6 (now and then pointed jahlomûn), we hear the stroke of the uplifted axes, which break in pieces the costly carved work of the Temple. The suffix of פּתּוּחיה (the carved works thereof) refers, according to the sense, to מועדך. The lxx, favouring the Maccabaean interpretation, renders: ἐξέκοψαν τάς θύρας αὐτῆς (פּתחיה). This shattering of the panelling is followed in Psa 74:7 by the burning, first of all, as we may suppose, of this panelling itself so far as it consists of wood. The guaranteed reading here is מקדשׁך, not מקדשׁיך. שׁלּח בּאשׁ signifies to set on fire, immittere igni, differing from שׁלּח אשׁ בּ, to set fire to, immittere ignem. On לארץ חלּלוּ, cf. Lam 2:2; Jer 19:13. Hitzig, following the lxx, Targum, and Jerome, derives the exclamation of the enemies נינם from נין: their whole generation (viz., we will root out)! But נין is posterity, descendants; why therefore only the young and not the aged? And why is it an expression of the object and not rather of the action, the object of which would be self-evident? נינם is fut. Kal of ינה, here = Hiph. הונה, to force, oppress, tyrannize over, and like אנס, to compel by violence, in later Hebrew. נינם (from יינה, like ייפה) is changed in pause into נינם; cf. the future forms in Num 21:30; Exo 34:19, and also in Psa 118:10-12. Now, after mention has been made of the burning of the Temple framework, מועדי־אל cannot denote the place of the divine manifestation after its divisions (Hengstenberg), still less the festive assemblies (Böttcher), which the enemy could only have burnt up by setting fire to the Temple over their heads, and כל does not at all suit this. The expression apparently has reference to synagogues (and this ought not to be disputed), as Aquila and Symmachus render the word. For there is no room for thinking of the separate services conducted by the prophets in the northern kingdom (2Ki 4:23), because this kingdom no longer existed at the time this Psalm was written; nor of the בּמות, the burning down of which no pious Israelite would have bewailed; nor of the sacred places memorable from the early history of Israel, which are nowhere called מועדים, and after the founding of the central sanctuary appear only as the seats of false religious rites. The expression points (like בּית ועד, Sota ix. 15) to places of assembly for religious purposes, to houses for prayer and teaching, that is to say, to synagogues - a weighty instance in favour of the Maccabaean origin of the Psalm.

Psa 74:9-11

The worst thing the poet has to complain of is that God has not acknowledged His people during this time of suffering as at other times. “Our signs” is the direct antithesis to “their sings” (Psa 74:4), hence they are not to be understood, after Psa 86:17, as signs which God works. The suffix demands, besides, something of a perpetual character; they are the instituted ordinances of divine worship by means of which God is pleased to stand in fellowship with His people, and which are now no longer to be seen because the enemies have set them aside. The complaint “there is not prophet any more” would seem strange in the period immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, for Jeremiah’s term of active service lasted beyond this. Moreover, a year before (in the tenth year of Zedekiah’s reign) he had predicted that the Babylonian domination, and relatively the Exile, would last seventy years; besides, six years before the destruction Ezekiel appeared, who was in communication with those who remained behind in the land. The reference to Lam 2:9 (cf. Eze 7:26) does not satisfy one; for there it is assumed that there were prophets, a fact which is here denied. Only perhaps as a voice coming out of the Exile, the middle of which (cf. Hos 3:4; 2Ch 15:3, and besides Canticum trium puerorum, Psa 74:14 : καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τούτῳ ἄρχων καὶ προφήτης καὶ ἡγούμενος) was truly thus devoid of signs or miracles, and devoid of the prophetic word of consolation, can Psa 74:9 be comprehended. The seventy years of Jeremiah were then still a riddle without any generally known solution (Dan. 9). If, however, synagogues are meant in Psa 74:8, Psa 74:9 now too accords with the like-sounding lament in the calamitous times of Antiochus (1 Macc. 4:46; 9:27; 14:41). In Psa 74:10 the poet turns to God Himself with the question “How long?” how long is this (apparently) endless blaspheming of the enemy to last? Why dost Thou draw back (viz., ממּנוּ, from us, not עלינוּ, Psa 81:15) Thy hand and Thy right hand? The conjunction of synonyms “Thy hand and Thy right hand” is, as in Psa 44:4, Sirach 33:7, a fuller expression for God’s omnipotent energy. This is now at rest; Psa 74:11 calls upon it to give help by an act of judgment. “Out of the midst of Thy bosom, destroy,” is a pregnant expression for, “drawing forth out of Thy bosom the hand that rests inactive there, do Thou destroy.” The Chethîb חוקך has perhaps the same meaning; for חוק, Arab. ḥawq, signifies, like חיק, Arab. ḥayq, the act of encompassing, then that which encompasses. Instead of מחיקך (Exo 4:7) the expression is מקּרב חיקך, because there, within the realm of the bosom, the punitive justice of God for a time as it were slumbers. On the כלּה, which outwardly is without any object, cf. Psa 59:14.

Psa 74:12-17

With this prayer for the destruction of the enemies by God’s interposition closes the first half of the Psalm, which has for its subject-matter the crying contradiction between the present state of things and God’s relationship to Israel. The poet now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel’s King unfolded the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel’s existence was imperilled. בּקרב הארץ, not only within the circumference of the Holy Land, but, e.g., also within that of Egypt (Exo 8:18-22). The poet has Egypt directly in his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (Psa 74:13-15), and then at the natural displays of God’s power (Psa 74:16, Psa 74:17). Hengstenberg is of opinion that Psa 74:13-15 also are to be understood in the latter sense, and appeals to Job 26:11-13. But just as Isaiah (Isa 51:9, cf. Psa 27:1) transfers these emblems of the omnipotence of God in the natural world to His proofs of power in connection with the history of redemption which were exhibited in the case of a worldly power, so does the poet here also in Psa 74:13-15. The תּנּיּן (the extended saurian) is in Isaiah, as in Ezekiel (התּנּים, Psa 29:3; Psa 32:2), an emblem of Pharaoh and of his kingdom; in like manner here the leviathan is the proper natural wonder of Egypt. As a water-snake or a crocodile, when it comes up with its head above the water, is killed by a powerful stroke, did God break the heads of the Egyptians, so that the sea cast up their dead bodies (Exo 14:30). The ציּים, the dwellers in the steppe, to whom these became food, are not the Aethiopians (lxx, Jerome), or rather the Ichthyophagi (Bocahrt, Hengstenberg), who according to Agatharcides fed ἐκ τῶν ἐκριπτομένων εἰς τὴν χέρσον κητῶν, but were no cannibals, but the wild beasts of the desert, which are called עם, as in Pro 30:25. the ants and the rock-badgers. לציים is a permutative of the notion לעם, which was not completed: to a (singular) people, viz., to the wild animals of the steppe. Psa 74:15 also still refers not to miracles of creation, but to miracles wrought in the course of the history of redemption; Psa 74:15 refers to the giving of water out of the rock (Psa 78:15), and Psa 74:15 to the passage through the Jordan, which was miraculously dried up (הובשׁתּ, as in Jos 2:10; Jos 4:23; Jos 5:1). The object מעין ונחל is intended as referring to the result: so that the water flowed out of the cleft after the manner of a fountain and a brook. נהרות are the several streams of the one Jordan; the attributive genitive איתן describe them as streams having an abundance that does not dry up, streams of perennial fulness. The God of Israel who has thus marvellously made Himself known in history is, however, the Creator and Lord of all created things. Day and night and the stars alike are His creatures. In close connection with the night, which is mentioned second, the moon, the מאור of the night, precedes the sun; cf. Psa 8:4, where כּונן is the same as הכין in this passage. It is an error to render thus: bodies of light, and more particularly the sun; which would have made one expect מאורות before the specializing Waw. גּבוּלות are not merely the bounds of the land towards the sea, Jer 5:22, but, according to Deu 32:8; Act 17:26, even the boundaries of the land in themselves, that is to say, the natural boundaries of the inland country. קיץ וחרף are the two halves of the year: summer including spring (אביב), which begins in Nisan, the spring-month, about the time of the vernal equinox, and autumn including winter (צתו), after the termination of which the strictly spring vegetation begins (Sol 2:11). The seasons are personified, and are called God’s formations or works, as it were the angels of summer and of winter.

Psa 74:18-23

The poet, after he has thus consoled himself by the contemplation of the power of God which He has displayed for His people’s good as their Redeemer, and for the good of the whole of mankind as the Creator, rises anew to prayer, but all the more cheerfully and boldly. Since ever present facts of creation have been referred to just now, and the historical mighty deeds of God only further back, זאת refers rather forwards to the blaspheming of the enemies which He suffers now to go on unpunished, as though He took no cognizance of it. חרף has Pasek after it in order to separate the word, which signifies reviling, from the most holy Name. The epithet עם־נבל reminds one of Deu 32:21. In Psa 74:19 according to the accents חיּת is the absolute state (the primary form of חיּה, vid., on Psa 61:1): give not over, abandon not to the wild beast (beasts), the soul of Thy turtle-dove. This is probably correct, since לחיּת נפשׁ, “to the eager wild beast,” this inversion of the well-known expression נפשׁ חיּה, which on the contrary yields the sense of vita animae, is an improbable and exampleless expression. If נפשׁ were intended to be thus understood, the poet might have written אל־תתן לנפשׁ חיּה תורך, “give not Thy turtle-dove over to the desire of the wild beast.” Hupfeld thinks that the “old, stupid reading” may be set right at one stroke, inasmuch as he reads אל תתן לנפש חית תורך, and renders it “give not to rage the life Thy turtle-dove;” but where is any support to be found for this לנפשׁ, “to rage,” or rather (Psychology, S. 202; tr. p. 239) “to eager desire?” The word cannot signify this in such an isolated position. Israel, which is also compared to a dove in Psa 68:14, is called a turtle-dove (תּור). In Psa 74:19 חיּת has the same signification as in Psa 74:19, and the same sense as Psa 68:11 (cf. Ps 69:37): the creatures of Thy miserable ones, i.e., Thy poor, miserable creatures - a figurative designation of the ecclesia pressa. The church, which it is the custom of the Asaphic Psalms to designate with emblematical names taken from the animal world, finds itself now like sheep among wolves, and seems to itself as if it were forgotten by God. The cry of prayer הבּט לבּרית comes forth out of circumstances such as were those of the Maccabaean age. בּרית is the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17); ); the persecution of the age of the Seleucidae put faith to the severe test, that circumcision, this sign which was the pledge to Israel of God’s gracious protection, became just the sign by which the Syrians knew their victims. In the Book of Daniel, Dan 11:28, Dan 11:30, cf. Ps. 22:32, ברית is used directly of the religion of Israel and its band of confessors. The confirmatory clause Psa 74:20 also corresponds to the Maccabaean age, when the persecuted confessors hid themselves far away in the mountains (1 Macc. 2:26ff., 2 Macc. 6:11), but were tracked by the enemy and slain, - at that time the hiding-places (κρύφοι, 1 Macc. 1:53) of the land were in reality full of the habitations of violence. The combination נאות חמס is like נאות השׁלום, Jer 25:37, cf. Gen 6:11. From this point the Psalm draws to a close in more familiar Psalm - strains. אל־ישׁב, Psa 74:21, viz., from drawing near to Thee with their supplications. “The reproach of the foolish all the day” is that which incessantly goes forth from them. עלה תּמיד, “going up (1Sa 5:12, not: increasing, 1Ki 22:35) perpetually,” although without the article, is not a predicate, but attributive (vid., on Psa 57:3). The tone of the prayer is throughout temperate; this the ground upon which it bases itself is therefore all the more forcible.

Mournful Complaints.

1 O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? 2 Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. 3 Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. 4 Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs. 5 A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. 6 But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. 7 They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. 8 They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land. 9 We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. 10 O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? 11 Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? pluck it out of thy bosom.

This psalm is entitled Maschil—a psalm to give instruction, for it was penned in a day of affliction, which is intended for instruction; and this instruction in general it gives us, That when we are, upon any account, in distress, it is our wisdom and duty to apply to God by faithful and fervent prayer, and we shall not find it in vain to do so. Three things the people of God here complain of:—

I. The displeasure of God against them, as that which was the cause and bitterness of all their calamities. They look above the instruments of their trouble, who, they knew, could have no power against them unless it were given them from above, and keep their eye upon God, by whose determined counsel they were delivered up into the hands of wicked and unreasonable men. Observe the liberty they take to expostulate with God (v. 1), we hope not too great a liberty, for Christ himself, upon the cross, cried out, My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me? So the church here, O God! why hast thou forsaken us for ever? Here they speak according to their present dark and melancholy apprehensions; for otherwise, Has God cast away his people? God forbid, Rom. xi. 1. The people of God must not think that because they are cast down they are therefore cast off, that because men cast them off therefore God does, and that because he seems to cast them off for a time therefore they are really cast off for ever: yet this expostulation intimates that they dreaded God's casting them off more than any thing, that they desired to be owned of him, whatever they suffered from men, and were desirous to know wherefore he thus contended with them: Why does thy anger smoke? that is, why does it rise up to such a degree that all about us take notice of it, and ask, What means the heat of this great anger? Deut. xxix. 24. Compare v. 20, where the anger of the Lord and his jealousy are said to smoke against sinners. Observe what they plead with God, now that they lay under the tokens and apprehensions of his wrath. 1. They plead their relation to him: "We are the sheep of thy pasture, the sheep wherewith thou hast been pleased to stock the pasture, thy peculiar people whom thou art pleased to set apart for thyself and design for thy own glory. That the wolves worry the sheep is not strange; but was ever any shepherd thus displeased at his own sheep? Remember, we are thy congregation (v. 2), incorporated by thee and for thee, and devoted to thy praise; we are the rod, or tribe, of thy inheritance, whom thou hast been pleased to claim a special property in above other people ( Deut. xxxii. 9), and from whom thou hast received the rents and issues of praise and worship more than from the neighbouring nations. Nay, a man's inheritance may lie at a great distance, but we are pleading for Mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt, which has been the place of thy peculiar delight and residence, thy demesne and mansion." 2. They plead the great things God had done for them and the vast expense he had been at upon them: "It is thy congregation, which thou hast not only made with a word's speaking, but purchased of old by many miracles of mercy when they were first formed into a people; it is thy inheritance, which thou hast redeemed when they were sold into servitude." God gave Egypt to ruin for their ransom, gave men for them, and people for their life, Isa. xliii. 3, 4. "Now, Lord, wilt thou now abandon a people that cost thee so dear, and has been so dear to thee?" And, if the redemption of Israel out of Egypt was an encouragement to hope that he would not cast them off, much more reason have we to hope that God will not cast off any whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood; but the people of his purchase shall be for ever the people of his praise. 3. They plead the calamitous state that they were in (v. 3): "Lift up thy feet; that is, come with speed to repair the desolations that are made in thy sanctuary, which otherwise will be perpetual an irreparable." It has been sometimes said that the divine vengeance strikes with iron hands, yet it comes with leaden feet; and then those who wait for the day of the Lord, cry, Lord, lift up thy feet; exalt thy steps; magnify thyself in the outgoing of thy providence. When the desolations of the sanctuary have continued long we are tempted to think they will be perpetual; but it is a temptation; for God will avenge his own elect, will avenge them speedily, though he bear long with their oppressors and persecutors.

II. They complain of the outrage and cruelty of their enemies, not so much, no, not at all, of what they had done to the prejudice of their secular interests; here are no complaints of the burning of their cities and ravaging of their country, but only what they had done against the sanctuary and the synagogue. The concerns of religion should lie nearer our hearts and affect us more than any worldly concern whatsoever. The desolation of God's house should grieve us more than the desolation of our own houses; for the matter is not great what becomes of us and our families in this world provided God's name may be sanctified, his kingdom may come, and his will be done.

1. The psalmist complains of the desolations of the sanctuary, as Daniel, ch. ix. 17. The temple at Jerusalem was the dwelling-place of God's name, and therefore the sanctuary, or holy place, v. 7. In this the enemies did wickedly (v. 3), for they destroyed it in downright contempt of God and affront to him. (1.) They roared in the midst of God's congregations, v. 4. There where God's faithful people attended on him with a humble reverent silence, or softly speaking, they roared in a riotous revelling manner, being elated with having made themselves masters of that sanctuary of which they had sometimes heard formidable things. (2.) They set up their ensigns for signs. The banners of their army they set up in the temple (Israel's strongest castle, as long as they kept closely to God) as trophies of their victory. There, where the signs of God's presence used to be, now the enemy had set up their ensigns. This daring defiance of God and his power touched his people in a tender part. (3.) They took a pride in destroying the carved work of the temple. As much as formerly men thought it an honour to lend a hand to the building of the temple, and he was thought famous that helped to fell timber for that work, so much now they valued themselves upon their agency in destroying it, v. 5, 6. Thus, as formerly those were celebrated for wise men that did service to religion, so now those are applauded as wits that help to run it down. Some read it thus: They show themselves, as one that lifts up axes on high in a thicket of trees, for so do they break down the carved work of the temple they make no more scruple of breaking down the rich wainscot of the temple than woodcutters do of hewing trees in the forest; such indignation have they at the sanctuary that the most curious carving that ever was seen is beaten down by the common soldiers without any regard had to it, either as a dedicated thing or as a piece of exquisite art. (4.) They set fire to it, and so violated or destroyed it to the ground, v. 7. The Chaldeans burnt the house of God, that stately costly fabric, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 19. And the Romans left not there one stone upon another (Matt. xxiv. 2), rasing it, rasing it, even to the foundations, till Zion, the holy mountain, was, by Titus Vespasian, ploughed as a field.

2. He complains of the desolations of the synagogues, or schools of the prophets, which, before the captivity, were in use, though much more afterwards. There God's word was read and expounded, and his name praised and called upon, without altars or sacrifices. These also they had a spite to (v. 8): Let us destroy them together; not only the temple, but all the places of religious worship and the worshippers with them. Let us destroy them together; let them be consumed in the same flame. Pursuant to this impious resolve they burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land and laid them all waste. So great was their rage against religion that the religious houses, because religious, were all levelled with the ground, that God's worshippers might not glorify God, and edify one another, by meeting in solemn assemblies.

III. The great aggravation of all these calamities was that they had no prospect at all of relief, nor could they foresee an end of them (v. 9): "We see our enemy's sign set up in the sanctuary, but we see not our signs, none of the tokens of God's presence, no hopeful indications of approaching deliverance. There is no more any prophet to tell us how long the trouble will last and when things concerning us shall have an end, that the hope of an issue at last may support us under our troubles." In the captivity in Babylon they had prophets, and had been told how long the captivity should continue, but the day was cloudy and dark (Ezek. xxxiv. 12), and they had not as yet the comfort of these gracious discoveries. God spoke once, yea, twice, good words and comfortable words, but they perceived them not. Observe, They do not complain, "We see not our armies; there are no men of war to command our forces, nor any to go forth with our hosts;" but, "no prophets, none to tell us how long." This puts them upon expostulating with God, as delaying, 1. To assert his honour (v. 10): How long shall the adversary reproach and blaspheme thy name? In the desolations of the sanctuary our chief concern should be for the glory of God, that it may not be injured by the blasphemies of those who persecute his people for his sake, because they are his; and therefore our enquiry should be, not "How long shall we be troubled?" but "How long shall God be blasphemed?" 2. To exert his power (v. 11): "Why withdrawest thou thy hand, and dost not stretch it out, to deliver thy people and destroy thy enemies? Pluck it out of thy bosom, and be not as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save, or will not," Jer. xiv. 9. When the power of enemies is most threatening it is comfortable to fly to the power of God.

Acknowledgments of Divine Power.

12 For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. 14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. 15 Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers. 16 The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. 17 Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.

The lamenting church fastens upon something here which she calls to mind, and therefore hath she hope (as Lam. iii. 21), with which she encourages herself and silences her own complaints. Two things quiet the minds of those that are here sorrowing for the solemn assembly:—

I. That God is the God of Israel, a God in covenant with his people (v. 12): God is my King of old. This comes in both as a plea in prayer to God (Ps. xliv. 4, thou art my King, O God!) and as a prop to their own faith and hope, to encourage themselves to expect deliverance, considering the days of old, Ps. lxxvii. 5. The church speaks as a complex body, the same in every age, and therefore calls God, "My King, my King of old," or, "from antiquity;" he of old put himself into that relation to them and appeared and acted for them in that relation. As Israel's King, he wrought salvation in the midst of the nations of the earth; for what he did, in the government of the world, tended towards the salvation of his church. Several things are here mentioned which God had done for his people as their King of old, which encouraged them to commit themselves to him and depend upon him.

1. He had divided the sea before them when they came out of Egypt, not by the strength of Moses or his rod, but by his own strength; and he that could do that could do any thing.

2. He had destroyed Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Pharaoh was the leviathan; the Egyptians were the dragons, fierce and cruel. Observe, (1.) The victory obtained over these enemies. God broke their heads, baffled their politics, as when Israel, the more they were afflicted by them, multiplied the more. God crushed their powers, though complicated, ruined their country by ten plagues, and at last drowned them all in the Red Sea. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, Ezek. xxxi. 18. It was the Lord's doing; none besides could do it, and he did it with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. This was typical of Christ's victory over Satan and his kingdom, pursuant to the first promise, that the seed of the woman should break the serpent's head. (2.) The improvement of this victory for the encouragement of the church: Thou gavest him to be meat to the people of Israel, now going to inhabit the wilderness. The spoil of the Egyptians enriched them; they stripped their slain, and so got the Egyptians' arms and weapons, as before they had got their jewels. Or, rather, this providence was meat to their faith and hope, to support and encourage them in reference to the other difficulties they were likely to meet with in the wilderness. It was part of the spiritual meat which they were all made to eat of. Note, The breaking of the heads of the church's enemies is the joy and strength of the hearts of the church's friends. Thus the companions make a banquet even of leviathan, Job xli. 6.

3. God had both ways altered the course of nature, both in fetching streams out of the rock and turning streams into rock, v. 15. (1.) He had dissolved the rock into waters: Thou didst bring out the fountain and the flood (so some read it); and every one knows whence it was brought, out of the rock, out of the flinty rock. Let this never be forgotten, but let it especially be remembered that the rock was Christ, and the waters out of it were spiritual drink. (2.) He had congealed the waters into rock: Thou driedst up mighty rapid rivers, Jordan particularly at the time when it overflowed all its banks. He that did these things could now deliver his oppressed people, and break the yoke of the oppressors, as he had done formerly; nay, he would do it, for his justice and goodness, his wisdom and truth, are still the same, as well as his power.

II. That the God of Israel is the God of nature, v. 16, 17. It is he that orders the regular successions and revolutions, 1. Of day and night. He is the Lord of all time. The evening and the morning are of his ordaining. It is he that opens the eyelids of the morning light, and draws the curtains of the evening shadow. He has prepared the moon and the sun (so some read it), the two great lights, to rule by day and by night alternately. The preparing of them denotes their constant readiness and exact observance of their time, which they never miss a moment. 2. Of summer and winter: "Thou hast appointed all the bounds of the earth, and the different climates of its several regions, for thou hast made summer and winter, the frigid and the torrid zones; or, rather, the constant revolutions of the year and its several seasons." Herein we are to acknowledge God, from whom all the laws and powers of nature are derived; but how does this come in here? (1.) He that had power at first to settle, and still to preserve, this course of nature by the diurnal and annual motions of the heavenly bodies, has certainly all power both to save and to destroy, and with him nothing is impossible, nor are any difficulties or oppositions insuperable. (2.) He that is faithful to his covenant with the day and with the night, and preserves the ordinances of heaven inviolable will certainly make good his promise to his people and never cast off those whom he has chosen, Jer. xxxi. 35, 36; xxxiii. 20, 21. His covenant with Abraham and his seed is as firm as that with Noah and his sons, Gen. viii. 21. (3.) Day and night, summer and winter, being counterchanged in the course of nature, throughout all the borders of the earth, we can expect no other than that trouble and peace, prosperity and adversity, should be, in like manner, counterchanged in all the borders of the church. We have as much reason to expect affliction as to expect night and winter. But we have then no more reason to despair of the return of comfort than we have to despair of day and summer.

Earnest Supplications; Pleading with God.

18 Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord , and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. 19 O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever. 20 Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. 21 O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise thy name. 22 Arise, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily. 23 Forget not the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually.

The psalmist here, in the name of the church, most earnestly begs that God would appear fro them against their enemies, and put an end to their present troubles. To encourage his own faith, he interests God in this matter (v. 22): Arise, O God! plead thy own cause. This we may be sure he will do, for he is jealous for his own honour; whatever is his own cause he will plead it with a strong hand, will appear against those that oppose it and with and for those that cordially espouse it. He will arise and plead it, though for a time he seems to neglect it; he will stir up himself, will manifest himself, will do his own work in his own time. Note, The cause of religion is God's own cause and he will certainly plead it. Now, to make it out that the cause is God's, he pleads,

I. That the persecutors are God's sworn enemies: "Lord, they have not only abused us, but they have been, and are, abusive to thee; what is done against us, for thy sake, does, by consequence, reflect upon thee. But that is not all; they have directly and immediately reproached thee, and blasphemed thy name," v. 18. This was that which they roared in the sanctuary; they triumphed as if they had now got the mastery of the God is Israel, of whom they had heard such great things. As nothing grieves the saints more than to hear God's name blasphemed, so nothing encourages them more to hope that God will appear against their enemies than when they have arrived at such a pitch of wickedness as to reproach God himself; this fills the measure of their sins apace and hastens their ruin. The psalmist insists much upon this: "We dare not answer their reproaches; Lord, do thou answer them. Remember that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name (v. 18) and that still the foolish man reproaches thee daily." Observe the character of those that reproach God; they are foolish. As atheism is folly (Ps. xiv. 1), profaneness and blasphemy are no less so. Perhaps those are cried up as the wits of the age that ridicule religion and sacred things; but really they are the greatest fools, and will shortly be made to appear so before all the world. And yet see their malice—They reproach God daily, as constantly as his faithful worshippers pray to him and praise him; see their impudence—They do not hide their blasphemous thoughts in their own bosoms, but proclaim them with a loud voice (forget not the voice of thy enemies, v. 23), and this with a daring defiance of divine justice; they rise up against thee, and by their blasphemies even wage war with heaven and take up arms against the Almighty. Their noise and tumult ascend continually (so some), as the cry of Sodom came up before God, calling for vengeance, Gen. xviii. 21. It increases continually (so we read it); they grow worse and worse, and are hardened in their impieties by their successes. Now, Lord, remember this; do not forget it. God needs not to be put in remembrance by us of what he has to do, but thus we must show our concern for his honour and believe that he will vindicate us.

II. That the persecuted are his covenant-people. 1. See what distress they are in. They have fallen into the hands of the multitude of the wicked, v. 19. How are those increased that trouble them! There is no standing before an enraged multitude, especially like these, armed with power; and, as they are numerous, so they are barbarous: The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. The land of the Chaldeans, where there was none of the light of the knowledge of the true God (though otherwise it was famed for learning and arts), was indeed a dark place; the inhabitants of it were alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in them, and therefore they were cruel: where there was no true divinity there was scarcely to be found common humanity. They were especially cruel to the people of God; certainly those have no knowledge who eat them up, Ps. xiv. 4. They are oppressed (v. 21) because they are poor and unable to help themselves; they are oppressed, and so impoverished and made poor. 2. See what reason they had to hope that God would appear for their relief and not suffer them to be always thus trampled upon. Observe how the psalmist pleads with God for them. (1.) "It is thy turtle-dove that is ready to be swallowed up by the multitude of the wicked," v. 19. The church is a dove for harmlessness and mildness, innocency and inoffensiveness, purity and fruitfulness, a dove for mournfulness in a day of distress, a turtle-dove for fidelity and the constancy of love: turtle-doves and pigeons were the only fowls that were offered in sacrifice to God. "Shall thy turtle-dove, that is true to thee and devoted to thy honour, be delivered, its life and soul and all, into the hand of the multitude of the wicked, to whom it will soon become an easy and acceptable prey? Lord, it will be thy honour to help the weak, especially to help thy own." (2.) "It is the congregation of thy poor, and they are not the less thine for their being poor (for God has chosen the poor of this world, Jam. ii. 5), but they have the more reason to expect thou wilt appear for them because they are many: it is the congregation of thy poor; let them not be abandoned and forgotten for ever." (3.) "They are in covenant with thee; and wilt thou not have respect unto the covenant? v. 20. Wilt thou not perform the promises thou hast, in thy covenant, made to them? Wilt thou not own those whom thou hast brought into the bond of the covenant?" When God delivers his people it is in remembrance of his covenant, Lev. xxvi. 42. "Lord, though we are unworthy to be respected, yet have respect to the covenant." (4.) "They trust in thee, and boast of their relation to thee and expectations from thee. O let not them return ashamed of their hope (v. 21), as they will be if they be disappointed." (5.) "If thou deliver them, they will praise thy name and give thee the glory of their deliverance. Appear, Lord, for those that will praise thy name, against those that blaspheme it."

PSAL. LXXIV.

An instructing Psalme of Asaph.

WHerefore, O God, hast thou cast us off to perpetuitie: shall thine anger smoake against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregatiō, which thou hast purchased of old, the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed, this mount Sion wherin thou hast dwelt. Lift up thy feet to the desolatiōs of perpetuitie, the enemy hath done evill to all things, in the Sanctuary. Thy distressers roare in the mids of thy synagogues; they have set their signes for signes. He was knowne, as he lifted on high, axes against the thicket of the wood. And now the carved workes thereof all together they have beat down, with beetle and mallets.

They have cast into the fire thy sanctuaries, to the earth they have profaned the dwelling place of thy name. They said in their heart, let us make spoile of them altogether; they have burned all the synagogues of God in the land. We see not our signes, there is not any Prophet more, nor any with us that knoweth how long. How long, O God, shall the distresser reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name to perpetuity? Wherefore turnest thou away thine hand, even thy right hand? draw it out of the midst of thy bosome, make a full end. For God is my King from antiquity, he worketh salvations in the midst of the earth. Thou didst breake asunder the sea by thy strength, didst breake in peeces the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou didst quite burst the heads of Livjathan, didst give him for meat to the people that dwell in drie desarts. Thou didst cleave the fountaine and the streame, thou diddest dry up the rivers of strength. The day is thine, the night also is thine; thou hast prepared the light and the Sunne. Thou hast constituted all the borders of the earth, the summer and the winter, them hast thou formed. Remember this, the enemy reproacheth Iehovah, and the foolish people blaspheme thy name. Give not the soule of thy turtle-dove to the wilde company; the company of thy poore afflicted forget not to perpetuity. Have respect unto the covenant, for full are the darknesses of the earth, of the habitations of violent wrong. Let not the oppressed return ashamed; let the poore afflicted and needy praise thy name. Rise up, O God, pleade thou thy plea, remember thy reproach from the foole all the day. Forget not the voice of thy distressers; the tumultuous noise of them that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.

Annotations. OF Asaph] or, to Asaph; in Chaldee, by the hands of Asaph: see Psal. 50. 1. If Asaph (who lived in Davids daies) made this Psalme, it was a prophesie of troubles to come. If some other Prophet made it when calamities were on Israel, then was it committed to Asaphs posterity the singers, called by their fathers name; as Aarons posterity, are called Aaron, 1 Chron. 12. 27. thine anger smoake] or, thy nose smoke, that is, burne, as was threatned, Deut. 29. 20. A manifestation of fore displeasure: see Psal. 18. 9. and 80. 5. sheepe or flocke, that is, us thy people, as Psal. 79. 13. The stocke comprehendeth sheepe and goats, Lev. 1. 10. Vers. 2. purchased of old] or bought of y[illegible: 1 letter]re, when thou broughtest them out of Egypt, Exod. 15. 16. or understand, that thou hast purchased it, hast redeemed, &c. the rod of thine inheritance] that is, Israel, Ier. 10. 16. called elsewhere the line of Gods inheritance, Deut. 32. 9. which he measured out for himselfe as land is meted with a rod or line. It may also be read the scepter, or the tribe of thine inheritance, as Esa. 63. 17. for the Hebrew Shebet, which properly is a rod or staffe, is sometime a scepter, Psal. 45. 7. sometime a tribe, Psal. 78. 67. Vers. 3. Lift up thy feet] or thy hammers, that is, thy strokes, to stampe or beat downe the enemy unto perpetuall desolations. Thus the feet are used to tread downe with, Isa. 26. 6. and so the Greeke taketh it here, changing the metaphor, and translating it, thy hands, which are also instruments to strike downe with. Or lift up thy feet, that is, Come quickly to see the perpetuall desolations which the enemy hath made. hath done evill] that is, broken, robbed, burned, wasted all things; as did Nebuchadnezar in the Temple, 2 King. 24. 13. and 25. 9, 13, 14, &c. Vers. 4. thy synagogues] or assemblies, either the courts and places about the temple, where the people assembled, or the other synagogues in Ierusalem, as after in vers. 8. he speakes of all the synagogues in the land, places where prayers and lectures of the law were used, Act. 16. 13. and 15. 21. The assembly of Christians is called also by this name synagogue, Iam. 2. 2. their signes] or banners, which are signes of victory, or of idolatry. See after, vers. 9. Vers. 5. He was knowne] He, that is, A man, or every one of the enemies was knowne, that is, renowmed, or famous, as having done some notable act. as he lifted on high] or, as he that bringeth aloft, that is, as a man brings the axe aloft over his head, to fell downe the thicke wood with might and maine. They cut downe the wood of the temple, as men doe trees in a forest. thicket of the wood] that is, the thick wood or tree, whose boughes are wrapped one in another: or, (if we understand it of the wood-worke in the Temple,) the infolded graven wood, which he that did most eagerly cut downe, was most renowmed. Vers. 6. And now] or, And then, at the same time. So Ps. 27. 6. carved workes] gravings, or (as the Hebrew phrase is) openings, used for graven or carved workes, Exod. 28. 11. The Greeke here turneth it, doores, which also have their name of opening. Vers. 7. thy sanctuaries] the temple (which had divers holy places) was burned by Nebuzar-adan, 2 King. 25. 9. to the earth] to wit, burning or rasing downe to the ground. Vers. 8. Let us make spoile] or, wee will oppresse, prey upon them. Of this Hebrew root, the Dove hath her name in that tongue, as being subject to the prey and spoile of Hawkes, &c. wherefore in vers. 19. he calleth the Church a turtle-dove. Vers. 9. our signes] the testimonies of Gods presence and favour, extraordinary or ordinary, as the sacrifices, &c. Dan. 11. 31. So Circumcision, the passeover, the Sabbath, &c. were for signes to Israel, Gen. 17. 11. Exod. 12. 13. and 31. 13. or, as the Chaldee expoundeth it, the signes which the Prophets gave us. any Prophet] that could see and foretell by the spirit an end of these troubles, Lam. 2. 9. A Prophet (N[illegible: 1 letter]bi) is one that from the inward counsell of God uttereth oracles. In old time he was called a Seer, 1 Sam. 9. 9. Amos 7. 12. how long] to wit, this affliction shall endure. The like speech is in Psal. 6. 4. Vers. 11. draw it, &c.] this word, or some such, seemeth here to be understood, as often in the Hebrew: see Psal. 69. 11. The drawing the hand out of the bosome denoteth a performance of the worke without [illegible: 2 letters]acknesse, as we may see by the contrary, Prov. 26. 15. full end] by consuming our enemies, and accomplishing our deliverance. Vers. 13. the sea] in Chaldee, the waters of the red sea. of the dragons] or whales, meaning the noble men of Egypt, who pursuing the Israelites were drowned in the red sea, Exod. 14. 28. For great persons are likened to Dragons or Whale-fishes, as Ezek. 29. 3. Vers. 14. the heads] that is, the head, as the Greek translateth it, called heads for the excellency and principality. of Livjathan] or, of the whale, meaning Pharaoh king of Aegypt, who was drowned with his Princes, Psal. 136. 15. Livjathan is the name of the great whale-fish, or sea Dragon, so called of the fast joyning together of his scales; as he is described, Iob 40. 20. and 41. 6, &c. and is used to resemble great tyrants, here, and in Isa. 27. 3. So the Chaldee expoundeth it, the heads of Pharaoh[illegible: 1 letter] mighty men. in dry desarts] that is, to the wilde beasts of the wildernesse, which might devoure the Egyptians after they were drowned, and cast upon the shore, Exod. 14. 30. The beasts may be called a people, as Conies, Pismires, Locusts, &c. are called peoples and nations, Prov 30. 25. 26. Ioel 1. 6. See also the notes on Psal. 72. 9. unlesse by these dwellers in dry places, we understand the Israelites in the wildernesse, to whom the spoile of the Egyptians was as meat; as elsewhere they said of the Canaanites, they are bread for us, Num. 14. 9. This the Chaldee favoureth. Vers. 15. didst cleave the fountaine] bringing a well and streame of water to thy people out of the rockes, Exod. 17. 6. Num. 20 11. Isa. 48. 21. Psal. 105. 41. rivers of strength] that is, strong, rough, or vehement rivers, as the waters of Iarden were dried up, that Israel might goe thorow, Ios. 3. 15,—17. The Chaldee Paraphrast addeth also the rivers Arnon and Iabok; whereof see Num. 21. 14. Deut. 2. 37. Vers. 16. the light] The Hebrew Maor is properly a lightsome body, as is the Sunne, Moone, Stars. &c. Genes. 1. 14, 15. and here may be meant of the Moone, as the Chaldee translateth it, for the S[illegible: 2 letters]e next followed. For these God is else-where also celebrated, Psal. 2, 6. 7. 8. 9. Vers. 19. soule of thy turile-dove] that is, the life of thy Church, called a turtle-dove, for their danger to be pre[illegible: 1 letter]ed upon by the wicked, as before, v. 8. being of themselves weake, mo[illegible: 1 span]ull, and [illegible: 2 letters]morous; also for their faith and lo[illegible: 2 letters]lty towards God, and innocency of life. In these respects a[illegible: 2 letters] doves mentioned, Hos. 11. 11. Ezek. 7. 16. Isa. 38. 14. and 59. 11. Song 4. 1. and 6. 8. Matth. 10. 16. So the Chaldee explaineth it, Give not the soules of them that teach thy law, to the people which are like wilde beasts. wilde company] or wilde beasts, as the Greeke translateth it, meaning the cruell people like wilde beasts, as the Chaldee saith. The same word straight-way followeth for the Church, or lively stocke of Christ. See the notes on Psal. 68. 11. 31. V. 20. the covenant] which thou didst make with our fathers, (as the Chaldee addeth to explaine it,) it may be meant of the covenant with Abraham and his seed, as is expressed, Psal. 105. 8, 9. 10. or, which was made with Noah, that the world should no more be drowned, as once it was, when it was full of cruelty, Genes. 6. 13. 17. 18. and 8. 21, 22. which covenant the Prophets apply to the Church after, Esa. 54. 9. the darknesses] that is, darke places, as in Ps. 88. 7. and 143. 3. he meaneth that the base obscure places werefull of violence, even folds or habitations of cruelty; no cottage being free from the rapine of the enemies. Darke places may be put for base or meare [illegible: 1 word] as in Prov. 22. 29. darke or obscure persons, are the base sort. The Greek here also translateth it darke persons, meaning the vile gracelesse enemies. Vers. 22. pleade thy plea] defend thine owne cause: see Psal. 35. 1. from the foole] understand, which thou sufferest from the foole, or impious, Nabal, which word was also before, v. 18. whereof see Psal. 14. 1. The Chaldee paraphraseth, from the foolish King. Vers. 23. ascendeth] that is, commeth up unto thee, it is so great; as Iona. 1. 2. or, it increaseth, as the battle is said to ascend when it increased, 1 Kin. 22. 35.

PSAL. LXXIV.

A Pſalm of Aſaph] Concerning the Babyloniſh Captivity, ſaith Kimchi; which either was here fore-told by Davids Aſaph, or bewailed by another of that name, who lived at that very time, when the Jews groaned under thoſe grievous calamities.

Verſ. 1. O God, why haſt thou caſt us off for ever?] The greatneſs of their grief, and diuturnity of their miſery draw from them ſuch expreſſions of diſcontent, as if they were doubtful of an utter dereliction.

Why doth thine anger (or thy noſe) ſmoke againſt the ſheep of thy paſture?] Anger is a fire, and in men or other Creatures enraged, a ſmoke formeth to go out of their Noſtrils. Xenoph[illegible: 1 letter]n ſaith of the [illegible: 1 letter]he[illegible: 2 letters]ns, when they are angry, they breath fire. This then is ſpoken of God, after the manner of men.

Verſ. 2. Remember thy Congregation which thou haſt purchaſed] His complaints end not in murmuring and grunting againſt God, but in humble Petitions ſo intermingled with ſighs and groans, as that his ſpeech is not ſo plain and perfect as at other times. Th[illegible: 2 letters] which he mainly [illegible: 1 word] i[illegible: 1 letter] the [illegible: 1 word], that [illegible: 1 word] of heavenly Honey, as one calleth it.

The rod of thine inheritance] Inheritances were [illegible: 1 word] to be [illegible: 1 word] out by Rods and [illegible: 1 span]

[illegible: 1 span] Metaphor from combatants, Qui [illegible: 1 word] pedes & paſſ[illegible: 2 letters], ut violenti[illegible: 2 letters] in hoſt[illegible: 1 letter]m invehantur. Some have reward [illegible: 1 span] thereby the Temple, that place [illegible: 1 span], Ezek. 43.

[illegible: 1 span] whither he [illegible: 1 word] for ſafety.

Verſ. 4. [illegible: 1 span] Poſuerunt ſign[illegible: 1 letter] ſua, ſigna. Kimchi. R. Solom. are ſo called by a word [illegible: 1 span]

They ſet up their [illegible: 1 word] for ſigns] They ſet them up upon the very Temple (as if they had conquered God himſelf) thoſe their Trophies and Monuments of victory. Some referre us for the ſenſe of theſe Words to Ezek. 21.2[illegible: 1 letter] others render them thus, They have [illegible: 1 word] in their, [illegible: 1 word] (or [illegible: 1 span] the ſacred) ſignes, and to have pointed there holy places. Beſides, what Antioch[illegible: 2 letters] did (concerning which ſee the Books of Maccab[illegible: 2 letters]s, and [illegible: 1 word] ) in after times, the Arms of Rome were ſet upon the Temple, and a Sw[illegible: 3 letters] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 3 letters]ven over the gate: this was the abomination of deſolation fore-told by our Saviour, Mat. [illegible: 1 letter]4▪ 15.

Verſ. 5. Aman was [illegible: 1 word] according it, &c.] i. e. Time was when the Workmen got them a name, by cutting down and fitting the Timber, for this building the Temple, renowned throughout the whole World for coſtly and choyſe materials, for curious and exact Workmanſhip, for Spiritual employment, and for myſtical ſignification; never was there the like edifice.

Verſ. 6. But now they break down the carved work [illegible: 1 word] ] The Chaldeans did with Military violence, and afterwards the Romanes under Titus, who could not preſerve it from the Souldiers fury, though he deſired ſo to have done, as [illegible: 1 word] Hiſtorians have told us. Now, if the enemies rage were ſo great (as is here deſcribed) againſt the outward marks of Religion, how much more ſhould our zeal kindle againſt the moſt coſtly or curious Monuments of Idolatry and Superſtition? Ziſca the valiant B[illegible: 1 letter]he[illegible: 1 letter]ine overthrew three children Monaſteries with their Mawmets, and among the reſt the famous Monaſtery called the Kings Court, a mile from Prague, in the walls whereof the whole Bible was moſt exquiſitely written in Letters of gold.

Verſ. 7. They have caſt fire into thy Sanctuary] Heb. They have ſent thy Sanctuary into the fire. So the French Papiſts, under the conduct of the Guiſes, dealt by the publick Meeting-houſes of the Proteſtants there, and particularly, by that Church at [illegible: 1 letter]ions, which was called [illegible: 1 word]. Hoc apud Ethnic[illegible: 2 letters] [illegible: 1 span] horrendum, Herodot. in V[illegible: 1 letter]an. The Heathens obſerved of ſuch as deſtroyed Temples, that they commonly came to ſome fearful end, by Thunder-bolts, or otherwiſe.

Verſ. 8. Let us deſtroy them together] Them, that is, the Saints; let us prey upon them as Hawkes do upon Doves; or them, that is the Temples and Schools; theſe the Devil ever ſought to deſtroy, as contary to his Kingdom; and ſo [illegible: 1 span] ſtill by the Turks and Papiſts, and other Hereticks.

They have burnt up all the Synagogues] The[illegible: 1 letter]e were a kind of Chapels of eaſe to the Temple at Jeruſalem, and in theſe the people met frequently, on the Sabbath eſpecially, for holy Exerciſes, as we do in our Churches. The good Centurion built one of theſe, Luke 7.5. See Jam. 2.2.

Verſ. 9. We ſee not our ſignes] Thoſe teſtimonies of Gods ſpecial [illegible: 1 span] the publick Ordinances, together with the legal Ceremonies, which was then Chriſt in Figures, q. d. [illegible: 1 span].

There is [illegible: 1 span] any Prophet, &c.] Hence ſome conclude, that this Pſalm was written about the end of the Babyloniſh Captivity, when there was Cha[illegible: 5 letters]th [illegible: 1 word], [illegible: 1 span] up of Prophecy, as [illegible: 1 span] ſo that they had Prophets [illegible: 1 span]

[illegible: 1 span]

Verſ. 11. Why withdraweſt thou thy hand?] Some by hand underſtand the left hand, and ſo both hands are withdrawn, yea held behind (retrovertis) after the manner of thoſe that have little to do, and leſſe to care for.

Out of thy boſom] Another poſture to the ſame purpoſe, Prov. 19.24. & 26.15.

Verſ. 12. For God is my King of old] He is the ſame, yeſterday, to[illegible: 2 letters]y, and for ever. I doubt not therefore but he will ſee to the ſafety of his loyall ſubjects.

Working ſalvation in the midſt of the earth] i.e. Openly, and to the view of all. Jeruſalem is in the midſt of Judaea, and Judea is in the midſt of the earth; the very center and navel of the habitable world, ſay the Fathers; it joyneth thoſe of the Eaſt to the Weſt by the Midland-ſea, and thoſe of the North to the South by the ſame Sea, running out as farre as the lake of Maeotis, very farre North, and by the red Sea deſcending very low into the South. This Country therefore God ſeemeth purpoſely to have eſpyed out, as himſelf ſpeaketh, that therehence he might ſend abroad ſalvation into all parts. And hereabout, ſome gather from Joel 3.2. Chriſt will ſit to judge the world, at the laſt day, Pſal. 50.1, 2.

Verſ. 13. Thou didſt divide the Sea, &c.] Thou in this and the following verſes is emphaticall and excluſive, q. d. Thou, and none but Thou.

Thou brakeſt the heads of the Dragons] Or, Crocodiles, So he calleth Pharaohs chieftains who were Satans ſwordmen, and with him had their heads broke at the red Sea.

Verſ. 14. Thou brakeſt the heads of Leviathan] i.e. Of Pharaoh himſelf. See Iſa. 27.1. & Ezek. 29.3. Egypt is ſituate between two ſeas; and a great part of it overflowed by the River Nilus. Pharaoh therefore is fitly compared to the Maſter-fiſh, and his Captains to Crocodiles.

And gaveſt him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderneſs] i. e. To the birds and wild-beaſts, who fed upon the dead carcaſſes of the Egyptians caſt upon the ſhore; the Iſraelites having firſt taken the ſpoil of them, whereby they were provided of many neceſſaries for their voyage toward Canaan.

Verſ. 15. Thou didſt cleave the fountain and the flood] i. e. Fontium & torrentium ſcatebras & latebras, thou didſt ſet the rock abroach once and again, Exod. 17.6. Numb. 20.11. reſciſſis ipſius naturae legibus.

Thou driedſt up mighty rivers] Jordan (wherein ſome ſay met two great Rivers, Jor and Dan) whereunto the Chaldee here addeth Arnon and Jabbok, wherof ſee Numb. 21.14. Deut. 2.37.

Verſ. 16. The day is thine, the night alſo is thine] He had argued with God, and ſtrengthened his own faith from Gods extraordinary works; and now he doth the like from his ordinary works in nature, with the alternal courſe thereof, wherein appeareth a kind of image of the ſeaſonable driving away of calamities, and turning all things into a deſired ſtate, Pſal. 30.5. Lam. 3.23.

Thou haſt prepared the light and the Sun] i. e. That firſt light ſcattered abroad the heavens, but afterwards gathered into the Sun, as into a veſſel. By light ſome underſtand here the Moon, that other great luminary; it being the manner of the Hebrews, nomen generis reſtringere ad ſpeciens deteriorem.

Verſ. 17. Thou haſt ſet all the borders of the earth] Securing it from the overflowings of the Sea, and appointing to the ſeveral Nations the bounds of their habitations.

Thou haſt made ſummer and winter] Plaſmasti ea. Now thou that haſt done all this and more for mankind in general, wilt thou be wanting to thy Church?

Verſ. 18. Remember this] Forgetfulneſſe befalleth not the Lord; nevertheleſſe he giveth us leave to be his Remembrancers, and not to keep ſilence when he is concerned. Iſa. 62.6.

That the enemy] See verſ. 10.

And that the fooliſh people have blasphemed thy Name] This irketh the Saints worſe than their own particular ſufferings. The Egyptians, out of their reſpect to their Mercurius Triſmegiſtus, would not raſhly pronounce his name; no more would the Grecians their god Jupiter, no not when they ſware by him.Turtur minimus cenſetur in columbarum genere, Arist[illegible: 1 letter] Should not we be much more tender and reſpective of the holy and reverend name of our God, taking it ill when by any it is blaſphemed?

Verſ. 19. O deliver not the ſoul of thy Turtle-dove] Turturilla tua, that groaneth unto thee, being not more innocent chaſt, mild, ſimple and ſociable, than weak, ſhiftleſſe,Columb. mas & faemina dormiunt & paſcuntur codem in loco. Arift. hiſt. anim. lib. 8. c. 3[illegible: 1 letter] Patitur & non rapit. Kimchi. and unable to defend her ſelf from thoſe beaſts of prey. Optatus, obſerveth, that no fowl is more preyed upon by Hauks, Kites, &c. than the Dove; yet are there ſtill more Doves than Hauks or Kites for all that; So the Church increaſeth, notwithſtanding all perſecutions.

Unto the multitude] Or, To the beaſt, the wild-company. The ſame word is put here alſo immediatly for the Congregation or lively flock of Chriſt.

Verſ. 20. Have reſpect unto the Covenant] This the Church knew to be her beſt plea; and therefore ſhe ſo plieth it.

For the dark places of the earth are full of cruelty] That is, ſaith Baſil, thoſe places where men are in the darkneſs or ignorance, not knowing God, are full of ambition and tyranny. Others make this the ſenſe. We can hide our ſelves no where, but the Perſecutors ferret us out.

Verſ. 21. O let not the Oppreſſed, &c.] Contuſas non revertatur confuſas, let him not take the repulſe, be diſappointed of his expected help from Heaven.

Verſ. 22. Plead thine own cauſe] For if we miſ-carry, Thou art ſure to ſuffer among the proud Chaldees, as an impotent God.

Remember how the fooliſh man, &c.] See verſ. 18.

Verſ. 23. The tumult of thoſe that riſe up againſt thee increaſeth daily] Heb. Aſcendeth, viz. up to Heaven, as Jon. 1.2. there is not hoe with them. Mundi laetitia eſt impunita nequitia. If the Lord take them not a link lower, as we ſay, they will grow intolerably inſolent.

O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? To cast us off at all were hard, but when thou dost for so long a time desert they people it is an evil beyond all endurance —the very chief of woes and abyss of misery. It is our wisdom when under chastisement to enquire, "Show me wherefore thou contendest with me?" and if the affliction be a protracted one, we should more eagerly enquire the purport of it. Sin is usually at the bottom of all the hiding of the Lord's face; let us ask the Lord to reveal the special form of it to us, that we may repent of it, overcome it, and henceforth forsake it. When a church is in a forsaken condition it must not sit still in apathy, but turn to the hand which smiteth it, and humbly enquire the reason why. At the same time, the enquiry of the text is a faulty one, for it implies two mistakes. There are two questions, which only admit of negative replies. "Hath God cast away his people?" (Ro 11:1); and the other, "Will the Lord cast off for ever?" (Ps 77:7). God is never weary of his people so as to abhor them, and even when his anger is turned against them, it is but for a small moment, and with a view to their eternal good. Grief in its distraction asks strange questions and surmises impossible terrors. It is a wonder of grace that the Lord has not long ago put us away as men lay aside cast off garments, but he hateth putting away, and will still be patient with his chosen. Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? They are thine, they are the objects of thy care, they are poor, silly, and defenceless things: pity them, forgive them, and come to their rescue. They are but sheep, do not continue to be wroth with them. It is a terrible thing when the anger of God smokes, but it is an infinite mercy that it does not break into a devouring flame. It is meet to pray the Lord to remove every sign of his wrath, for it is to those who are truly the Lord's sheep a most painful thing to be the objects of his displeasure. To vex the Holy Spirit is no mean sin, and yet how frequently are we guilty of it; hence it is no marvel that we are often under a cloud.

Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old. What a mighty plea is redemption. O God, canst thou see the blood mark on thine own sheep, and yet allow grievous wolves to devour them? The church is no new purchase of the Lord; from before the world's foundation the chosen were regarded as redeemed by the Lamb slain; shall ancient love die out, and the eternal purpose become frustrate? The Lord would have his people remember the paschal Lamb, the bloodstained lintel, and the overthrow of Egypt; and will he forget all this himself? Let us put him in remembrance, let us plead together. Can he desert his blood bought and forsake his redeemed? Can election fail and eternal love cease to glow? Impossible. The woes of Calvary, and the covenant of which they are the seal, are the security of the saints.

The rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed. So sweet a plea deserved to be repeated and enlarged upon. The Lord's portion is his people —will he lose his inheritance? His church is his kingdom, over which he stretches the rod of sovereignty; will he allow his possessions to be torn from him? God's property in us is a fact full of comfort: his value of us, his dominion over us, his connection with us are all so many lights to cheer our darkness. No man will willingly lose his inheritance, and no prince will relinquish his dominions; therefore we believe that the King of kings will hold his own, and maintain his rights against all comers.

This mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. The Lord's having made Zion the especial centre of his worship, and place of his manifestation, is yet another plea for the preservation of Jerusalem. Shall the sacred temple of Jehovah be desecrated by heathen, and the throne of the Great King be defiled by his enemies? Has the Spirit of God dwelt in our hearts, and will he leave them to become a haunt for the devil? Has he sanctified us by his indwelling, and will he, after all, vacate the throne? God forbid. It may be well to note that this Psalm was evidently written with a view to the temple upon Zion, and not to the tabernacle which was there in David's time, and was a mere tent; but the destructions here bewailed were exercised upon the carved work of a substantial structure. Those who had seen the glory of God in Solomon's peerless temple might well mourn in bitterness, when the Lord allowed his enemies to make an utter ruin of that matchless edifice.

Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations. The ruin made had already long been an eyesore to the suppliant, and there seemed no hope of restoration. Havoc lorded it not only for a day or a year, but with perpetual power. This is another argument with God. Would Jehovah sit still and see his own land made a wilderness, his own palace a desolation? Until he should arise, and draw near, the desolation would remain; only his presence could cure the evil, therefore is he entreated to hasten with uplifted feet for the deliverance of his people. Even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Every stone in the ruined temple appealed to the Lord; on all sides were the marks of impious spoilers, the holiest places bore evidence of their malicious wickedness; would the Lord for ever permit this? Would he not hasten to overthrow the foe who defied him to his face, and profaned the throne of his glory? Faith finds pleas in the worst circumstances, she uses even the fallen stones of her desolate palaces, and assails with them the gates of heaven, casting them forth with the great engine of prayer.

Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations. Where thy people sang like angels, these barbarians roar like beasts. When thy saints come together for worship, these cruel men attack them with all the fury of lions. They have no respect for the most solemn gatherings, but intrude themselves and their blasphemies into our most hallowed meetings. How often in times of persecution or prevalent heresy has the church learned the meaning of such language. May the Lord spare us such misery. When hypocrites abound in the church, and pollute her worship, the case is parallel to that before us; Lord save us from so severe a trial. They set up their ensigns for signs. Idolatrous emblems used in war were set up over God's altar, as an insulting token of victory, and of contempt for the vanquished and their God. Papists, Arians, and the modern school of Neologians, have, in their day, set up their ensigns for signs. Superstition, unbelief, and carnal wisdom have endeavoured to usurp the place of Christ crucified, to the grief of the church of God. The enemies without do us small damage, but those within the church cause her serious harm; by supplanting the truth and placing error in its stead, they deceive the people, and lead multitudes to destruction. As a Jew felt a holy horror when he saw an idolatrous emblem set up in the holy place, even so do we when in a Protestant church we see the fooleries of Rome, and when from pulpits, once occupied by men of God, we hear philosophy and vain deceit.

A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. Once men were renowned for felling the cedars and preparing them for building the temple, but now the axe finds other work, and men are as proud of destroying as their fathers were of erecting. Thus in the olden times our sires dealt sturdy blows against the forests of error, and laboured hard to lay the axe at the root of the trees; but, alas! their sons appear to be quite as diligent to destroy the truth and to overthrow all that their fathers built up. O for the good old times again! O for an hour of Luther's hatchet, or Calvin's mighty axe!

But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. The invaders were as industrious to destroy as the ancient builders had been to construct. Such fair carving it was barbarous to hew in pieces, but the Vandals had no mercy and broke down all, with any weapon which came to hand. In these days men are using axes and sledgehammers against the gospel and the church. Glorious truths, far more exquisite than the goodliest carving, are cavilled over and smashed by the blows of modern criticism. Truths which have upheld the afflicted and cheered the dying are smitten by pretentious Goths, who would be accounted learned, but know not the first principals of the truth. With sharp ridicule, and heavy blows of sophistry, they break the faith of some: and would, if it were possible, destroy the confidence of the elect themselves. Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans are but types of spiritual foes who labour to crush the truth and the people of God.

They have cast fire into thy sanctuary. Axes and hammers were not sufficient for the purpose of the destroyers, they must needs try fire. Malice knows no bounds. Those who hate God are never sparing of the most cruel weapons. To this day the enmity of the human heart is quite as great as ever; and, if providence did not restrain, the saints would still be as fuel for the flames. They have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. They made a heap of the temple, and left not one stone upon another. When the Lord left Mount Zion, and the Roman gained entrance, the military fury led the soldiers to burn out and root up the memorial of the famous House of the Lord. Could the powers of darkness have their way, a like fate would befall the church of Christ. "Rase it, "say they, "rase it even to the foundation thereof." Defilement to the church is destruction; her foes would defile her till nothing of her purity, and consequently of her real self, remained. Yet, even if they could wreak their will upon the cause of Christ, they are not able to destroy it, it would survive their blows and fires; the Lord would hold them still like dogs on a leash, and in the end frustrate all their designs.

They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together. It was no idle wish, their cruelty was sincere, deep seated, a matter of their inmost heart. Extirpation was the desire of Haman, and the aim of many another tyrant; not a remnant of the people of God would have been left if oppressors could have had their way. Pharaoh's policy to stamp out the nation has been a precedent for others, yet the Jews survive, and will: the bush though burning has not been consumed. Even thus the church of Christ has gone through baptism of blood and fire, but it is all the brighter for them. They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land. Here is no allusion to places called synagogues, but to assemblies; and as no assemblies for worship here held in but one place, the ruin of the temple was the destruction of all the holy gatherings, and so in effect all the meeting places were destroyed. One object of persecutors has always been to put an end to all conventicles, as they have called them. Keep them from meeting and you will scatter them, so have the enemy said; but, glory be to God, saints are independent of walls, and have met on the hill side, by the moss, or in the catacombs, or in a boat at sea. Yet has the attempt been almost successful, and the hunt so hot, that the faithful have wandered in solitude, and their solemn congregations have been, under such circumstances, few and far between. What sighs and cries have in such times gone up to the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. How happy are we that we can meet for worship in any place we choose, and none dare molest us.

We see not our signs. Alas, poor Israel! No Urim and Thummim blazed on the High Priest's bosom, and no Shechaniah shone from between the cherubim. The smoke of sacrifice and cloud of incense no more arose from the holy hill; solemn feasts were suspended, and even circumcision, the covenant sign, was forbidden by the tyrant. We, too, as believers, know what it is to lose our evidences and grope in darkness; and too often do our churches also miss the tokens of the Redeemer's presence, and their lamps remain untrimmed. Sad complaint of a people under a cloud! There is no more any prophet. Prophecy was suspended. No inspiring psalm or consoling promise fell from bard or seer. It is ill with the people of God when the voice of the preacher of the gospel fails, and a famine of the word of life falls on the people. God sent ministers are as needful to the saints as their daily bread, and it is a great sorrow when a congregation is destitute of a faithful pastor. It is to be feared, that with all the ministers now existing, there is yet a dearth of men whose hearts and tongues are touched with the celestial fire. Neither is there any among us that knoweth how long. If someone could foretell an end, the evil might be borne with a degree of patience, but when none can see a termination, or foretell an escape, the misery has a hopeless appearance, and is overwhelming. Blessed be God, he has not left his church in these days to be so deplorably destitute of cheering words; let us pray that he never may. Contempt of the word is very common, and may well provoke the Lord to withdraw it from us; may his long suffering endure the strain, and his mercy afford us still the word of life.

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Though we know not how long yet thou dost. The times and seasons are with thee. When God is reproached, there is hope for us, for it may be he will hearken and avenge his dishonoured name. Wickedness has great license allowed it, and justice lingers on the road; God has his reasons for delay, and his seasons for action, and in the end it shall be seen that he is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness. Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? He will do so for ever, unless thou dost give him his quietus. Wilt thou never defend thyself, and stop slanderous tongues? Wilt thou always endure the jeers of the profane? Is there to be no end to all this sacrilege and cursing? Yes, it shall all be ended, but not by and by. There is a time for the sinner to rage, and a time in which patience bears with him; yet it is but a time, and then, ah, then!

Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Wherefore this inaction, this indifference for thine own honour and thy people's safety? How bold is the suppliant! Does he err? Nay, verily, we who are so chill, and distant, and listless in prayer are the erring ones. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and he who learns the art shall surely prevail with God by its means. It is fit that we should enquire why the work of grace goes on so slowly, and the enemy has so much power over men: the inquiry may suggest practical reflections of unbounded value.

"Why dost thou from the conflict stay?

Why do thy chariot wheels delay?

Lift up thyself, hell's kingdom shake,

Arm of the Lord, awake, awake."

Pluck it out of thy bosom. A bold simile, but dying men must venture for their lives. When God seems to fold his arms we must not fold ours, but rather renew our entreaties that he would again put his hand to the work. O for more agony in prayer among professing Christians, then should we see miracles of grace. We have here before us a model of pleading, a very rapture of prayer. It is humble, but very bold, eager, fervent, and effectual. The heart of God is always moved by such entreaties. When we bring forth out strong reasons, then will he bring forth his choice mercies.

Verses 12-23. Having spread the sad case before the Lord, the pleader now urges another series of arguments for divine help. He reasons from the Lord's former wonders of grace, and his deeds of power, imploring a repetition of the same divine works.

For God is my King of old. How consoling is this avowal! Israel in holy loyalty acknowledges her King, and claims to have been his possession from of old, and thence she derives a plea for defence and deliverance. If the Lord be indeed the sole monarch of our bosoms, he will in his love put forth his strength on our behalf; if from eternity he has claimed us as his own, he will preserve us from the insulting foe. Working salvation in the midst of the earth. From the most remote period of Israel's history the Lord had worked out for her many salvations; especially at the Red Sea, the very heart of the world was astonished by his wonders of deliverance. Now, every believer may plead at this day the ancient deeds of the Lord, the work of Calvary, the overthrow of sin, death, and hell. He who wrought out our salvation of old will not, cannot desert us now. Each past miracle of grace assures us that he who has begun to deliver will continue to redeem us from all evil. His deeds of old were public and wrought in the teeth of his foes, they were no delusions or make believes; and, therefore, in all our perils we look for true and manifest assistance, and we shall surely receive it.

O let not the oppressed return ashamed. Though broken and crushed they come to thee with confidence; suffer them not to be disappointed, for then they will be ashamed of their hope. Let the poor and needy praise thy name. By thy speedy answer to their cries make their hearts glad, and they will render to thee their gladdest songs. It is not the way of the Lord to allow any of those who trust in him to be put to shame; for his word is, "He shall call upon me, and I will deliver him, and he shall glorify me."

Arise, O God, plead thine own cause. Answer thou the taunts of the profane by arguments which shall annihilate both the blasphemy and the blasphemer. God's judgments are awful replies to the defiance of his foes. When he makes empires crumble, and smites persecutors to the heart, his cause is pleaded by himself as none other could have advocated it. O that the Lord himself would come into the battle field. Long has the fight been trembling in the balance; one glance of his eyes, one word from his lip, and the banners of victory shall be borne on the breeze. Remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily. The Lord is begged to remember that he is himself reproached, and that by a mere man —that man a fool, and he is also reminded that these foul reproaches are incessant and repeated with every revolving day. It is bravely done when faith can pluck pleas out of the dragon's mouth and out of the blasphemies of fools find arguments with God.

Forget not the voice of thine enemies. Great warrior let the enemy's taunt provoke thee to the fray. They challenge thee; accept thou the gage of battle, and smite them with thy terrible hand. If the cries of thy children are too feeble to be heard, be pleased to note the loud voices of thy foes and silence their profanities for ever. The tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually. The ungodly clamour against thee and thy people, their blasphemies are loud and incessant, they defy thee, even thee, and because thou repliest not they laugh thee to scorn. They go from bad to worse, from worse to worst; their fury swells like the thunders of an advancing tempest. What will it come too? What infamy will next be hurled at thee and thine? O God, wilt thou for ever bear this? Hast thou no regard for thine honour, no respect for thy glory? Much of this Psalm has passed over our mind while beholding the idolatries of Rome, (the author visited Rome in November and December, 1871, while this portion of the Treasury of David was in progress) and remembering her bloody persecution of the saints. O Lord, how long shall it be ere thou wilt ease thyself of those profane wretches, the priests, and cast the harlot of Babylon into the ditch of corruption? May the church never cease to plead with thee till judgment shall be executed, and the Lord avenged upon Antichrist.

Whole Psalm. There is one singularity in this Psalm which reminds one strongly of Psalm 44: there is not one mention of national or personal sin throughout, no allusion to the Lord's righteous dealing in their punishment, no supplication for pardon and forgiveness; and yet one can hardly doubt that the writer of the Psalm, be he who he may, must have felt as keenly as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, or any other prophet of the captivity, the sins and iniquities which had brought all this sore evil upon them. But still, though there be expostulations, there is no complaint; though there be mourning, there is no murmuring; there is far more the cry of a smitten child, wondering why, and grieving that his father's face is so turned away from him in displeasure, and a father's hand so heavy on the child of his love. Or, as we might almost say, it is like the cry of one of those martyred ones beneath the altar, wondering at the marauder and oppressor, and exclaiming, "How long, O Lord, how long?" And yet it is the appeal of one who was still a sufferer, still groaning under the pressure of his calamities, "Why has thou cast us off for ever? We see not our signs, there is no more any prophet among us." Barton Bouchier.

Whole Psalm. The peculiarity of this Psalm is marred by the very frequent use of the xeg, for ever: Ps 74:1,3,10. E. W. Hengstenberg.

This Psalm, and particularly these words, do contain the church's sad lamentation over her deep affliction, together with her earnest expostulations with God about the cause. Two things there are that the church in these words doth plead with God. First, The greatness of her affliction: secondly, the nearness of he relation.

1. The greatness of her affliction. And there were three things in her affliction that did make it lie very heavy upon her. First, the root of this affliction; and that was God's anger: Why doth thine anger smoke, etc. Secondly, the height of this affliction; God was not only angry, but he did smoke in his anger. Thirdly, the length of this affliction: it was so long that God did seem to cast them off for ever.

2. The nearness of her relation: Against the sheep of thy pasture; as if they should have said, Lord, if thou hadst done this against thine enemies, it had been no wonder; if thou hadst poured out thy wrath against the vessels of wrath, it had not been so much. But what! wilt thou draw out thy sword against the sheep of thy pasture? It were no wonder that thou shouldest take the fat and the strong, and pour out thy judgments upon them; but wilt thou do it to thy sheep?

There be several doctrines that I may raise from these words; as,

First doctrine: That God's people are his sheep.

Second doctrine: That God may be sorely angry with his own people, with his own sheep.

Third doctrine: That when God is angry with his people, it becomes them carefully to enquire into the cause.

Fourth doctrine: That when God's people are under afflictions, they ought to take notice of, and be much affected with, his anger, from which they do proceed.

Fifth doctrine: That God's people under affliction are, or should be, more affected with his anger than with their smart. This is that which the church doth complain of, not that the church did so smart, but that God was displeased and angry; that did most affect them.

Sixth doctrine: That God's people are apt to have misgiving thoughts of God when they are in sore afflictions. God was angry with his people, and their hearts did misgive them, as if God did cast off his people.

Seventh doctrine: That God may be angry with his people, so sore, and so long, that in the judgment of sense it may seem that they are for ever cast off. Eighth doctrine: That though the people of God may not murmur against his proceedings, yet they may humbly expostulate with him about the cause. Joseph Alleine. 1633-1668.

Why doth thine anger smoke, etc. Anger is a fire; and in men, and other creatures enraged, a smoke seemeth to go out of their nostrils. Xenophon saith of the Thebans, when they are angry they breathe fire. This then is spoken of God, after the manner of men. John Trapp.

The sheep of thy pasture. There is nothing more imbecile than a sheep: simple, frugal, gentle, tame, patient, prolific, timid, domesticated, stupid, useful. Therefore, while the name of sheep is here used, it is suggested how pressing the necessity is for divine assistance, and how well befitting the Most High it would be to make their cause his own. Lorinus.

Remember thy congregation. It is not without reason that they do not say, Remember us, but Remember thy congregation, not ours, but thine; nor that because it has now begun to be thine, but which thou hast purchased of old, the rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed: likewise, this Mount Zion; not wherein we, but wherein thou hast dwelt. They had nothing which they could bring before an angry God with greater confidence, than the ancient lovingkindness shown to their fathers in former days. Musculus.

The rod of thine inheritance. hlxg jbv, the inheritance rod is the staff with which the inheritance is measured; jkv hdmh hgq, the land surveyor's rod (Eze 40:3); and this is used as lrwg, the lot, is for the portion, for the inheritance itself. E. W. Hengstenberg.

Thine inheritance. It signifies a nation, which through all successions God had a peculiar right and title to. Henry Hammond.

Thou hast redeemed, i.e., the purchased people, by restoring them when they had been alienated, and had fallen into the hands of others: like a goel, or near kinsman, who ransoms a brother hurried into captivity, and regains an inheritance that has been sold. Hermann Venema.

Lift up thy feet. Or, thy hammers, that is, "thy strokes, "to "stamp" or "beat down" the enemy "unto perpetual desolations." Thus the "feet" are used to "tread down with, " Isa 26:6; and so the Greek taketh it here, changing the metaphor, and translating it, "Thy hands, "which are also instruments to strike down with. Or, lift up thy feet, that is, come quickly to see the perpetual desolations, which the enemy hath made. Henry Ainsworth.

Lift up thy feet. Abu Walid renders it, Tread hard upon thine enemies. The Jewish Arab, Shew forth thy punishment, adding in a note that the lifting up the feet implies punishment, the bringing under by force being usually expressed by treading under the feet. Henry Hammond.

Lift up thy feet, etc. To these desolations they seek that God would lift up his footsteps, that is, that he would approach. In Ge 29:1, there occurs the phrase, to lift the feet; here the expression is much more marked —to lift up the footsteps —and must be taken to mean a swift, impetuous, majestic, and powerful approach; like a hero, who strikes the ground with heavy tread, and advances rapidly with far sounding footsteps. Hermann Venema.

In the sanctuary. Their cities had been laid waste, their provinces, their farms, their vineyards, their oliveyards. They themselves had been everywhere cut down without striking a blow in defence, and their means of life had been snatched away without resistance. Yet they speak not of these things; not because things of this sort ought not to cause grief, nor yet because the saints are not touched with a sense of their loss; but because those things which threatened the extinction of religion and the worship of God, overtopped the feeling of all these other misfortunes with an intolerable sorrow. Musculus.

Thine enemies roar, etc. The word gav is used especially of the roar of the lion... In this place we may justly extend the application of the verb to those noisy words, whether mirthful or boastful, blasphemous against God and calamitous to his people (Ps 74:10), breathing terror and threatenings through edicts; or rude and senseless, as in their idolatrous worship; or in their prayers and thoughtless songs. As in Isa 52:5, its meaning is to howl. Hermann Venema.

They set up their ensigns for signs. The meaning is, that the enemy, having abolished the signs of the true God, of his people and religion, such as circumcision, the feasts, sacrifices, the other ordinances of religion, and other marks of liberty, substituted his own idolatrous signs, as the signs of his authority and religion. Hermann Venema.

Verses 4-7. (The persecution under Antiochus. B.C. 168.) Athenaeus proceeded to Jerusalem, where, with the assistance of the garrison, he prohibited and suppressed every observance of the Jewish religion, forced the people to profane the Sabbath, to eat swine's flesh, and other unclean food, and expressly forbade the national rite of circumcision. The Temple was dedicated to Jupiter Olympus: the statue of that deity was erected on part of the altar of burnt offerings, and sacrifice duly performed... As a last insult, the feasts of the Bacchanalia, the license of which, as they were celebrated in the later ages of Greece, shocked the severe virtue of the older Romans, were substituted for the national festival of Tabernacles. The reluctant Jews were forced to join in these riotous orgies, and to carry the ivy, the insignia of the god. So near was the Jewish nation, and the worship of Jehovah, to total extermination. Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), in "A History of the Jews." (Under Titus.) And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings lying round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple, and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus imperator, with the greatest acclamation of joy. Josephus.

The synagogues of God. It is the opinion of Spencer, Vitringa, and of the learned in general, that the institution of synagogues for worship originated in the reading of the law publicly after the collection of its volumes by Ezra, and that, consequently, there were no such places of solemn assembly previous to the Babylonish captivity. Some of the Jews themselves have expressed a conviction that this is the fact, and the Scriptures give no intimation of their existence antecedently to that time. We are aware, however, that one of the first Hebraists of the present day, the Rev. Dr. Macaul, inclines to the opinion of an earlier origin than that generally adopted. We quote his words: "The existence of such places before the Babylonish captivity has been much disputed"; and most writers, arguing from the silence of the Old Testament, incline to the opinion that they originated in Babylon, and that after the restoration similar oratories were opened in the land of Israel; and hence some infer that the Seventy-fourth Psalm, which says in the eighth verse, They have burned up all the synagogues in the land, was written in the post Babylonian times. The argument from silence is, however, far from conclusive. The translation of yrewm as synagogues, in the verse just cited, might fairly lead to a similar translation in some other passages which were confessedly written before the captivity; and the circumstances, character, and necessities of the Israelites, the great body of whom were far removed from the temple, prove indisputably that in their towns and villages they must have had some locality where they assembled on their sabbaths, new moons, and other solemn days, for the purpose of receiving instruction in the law, and for public prayer. That locality, however different from subsequent arrangements, was the origin of the synagogue. How such assemblies were conducted before the captivity it is now impossible to say. F. A. Cox.

Synagogues. Dr. Prideaux affirms that they had no synagogues before the Babylonish captivity; for the main service of the synagogue, says he, being the reading of the law unto the people, where there was no book of the law to be read, there certainly could be no synagogues. But how rare the book of the law was through all Judaea, before the Babylonish captivity, many texts of Scripture tell us. When Jehoshaphat sent teachers through all Judaea, to instruct the people in the law of God, they carried a book of the law with them (2Ch 17:9), which they needed not have done if there had been any copies of the law in those cities to which they went; which certainly there would have been had there been any synagogues in them. And when Hilkiah found the law in the temple (2Ki 22:8), neither he nor king Josiah needed to have been so surprised at it, had books of the law been common on those times. Their behaviour on that occasion sufficiently proves they had never seen it before, which could not be the case had there then been any other copies of it to be found among the people; and if there were no copies of the law at that time among them, there could then be most certainly no synagogues for them to resort to for the hearing of it read unto them. From whence he concludes there could be no synagogues among the Jews, till after the Babylonish captivity. Cruden's Concordance.

Synagogues. The assertion of those who are in favour of the Maccabean origin of the Psalm, that these words describe the destruction of the synagogues, is met by the remark, that in all the copious accounts which we have of the transactions of these times, there is nothing said of any such work of destruction. E. W. Hengstenberg.

Synagogues. In the Old Testament we find no traces of meetings for worship in synagogues. Temporary altars, groves, and high places were used alike by the Jewish saints and sinners for the worship of God and idols. The only pre-exile instance which seems to indicate that the devout in Israel were in the habit of resorting to pious leaders for blessings and instruction on stated occasions, is to be found in 2Ki 4:23, where the Shunammite's husband asks, "Wherefore wilt thou go to him (Elisha) today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath." Yet 2Ki 22:8, etc.; 2Ch 34:14, etc., testify undoubtedly against the existence of places of worship under the monarchy. It is during the exile, whilst the temple worship was in abeyance, that we find indubitable proof of the systematic meetings on fasts for devotion and instruction (Zec 7:3-5 8:19). Religious meetings were also held on Sabbaths and fasts, to instruct the exiles in the divine law, and to admonish them to obey the divine precepts, (Ezr 10:1-9 Ne 8:1-3 9:1-3 13:1-3). These meetings, held near the temple and in other localities, were the origin of the synagogue, and the place in which the people assembled was denominated the house of assembly. Hence, also, the synagogue in the temple itself... These synagogues soon became very popular, so that the psalmist in depicting worship in the time of the Maccabees declares that the many meeting places of God —or the Synagogues of God as the A.V. rightly renders it —have been laid waste. Christian D. Ginsburg, in Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature.

(second clause). The sense seems to be, they (the Chaldaean invaders) have abolished all the solemnities in the land. They have taken away the daily sacrifice; they have put an end to the festivals and feasts of our holy ritual. Compare La 2:6: "He hath violently taken away his tabernacle; he hath destroyed his places of the assembly, "(or rather, his assembly, his moed). "The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion." Christopher Wordsworth.

We see not our signs. As if they had said, heretofore God was wont to give us signs and tokens, he would even work miracles for us, or he would send a prophet to instruct and advise us what to do; we had those who could tell us how long, that is, how long our troubles should last, and when we should have our expected end of them; but now we are in trouble, and no man can tell us how long, now we are left to the wide world, to shift for ourselves as well as we can; the Lord will not advise us what to do, nor give us his mind what's best to be done, or how to proceed; thus deplorable was their condition upon the hiding of God's face from them. Joseph Caryl.

We see not our signs. These signs, which he mourned that he did not see, were certain outward marks of God's special favour, certain testimonies of his presence, certain memorials that he was with them to bless them. And it is said that there were five things in Solomon's temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, which were not in the second temple, which was erected after the Babylonish captivity. Five memorials or tokens of God's special presence were then wanting. One was the ark of the covenant; another, the fire from heaven upon the brazen altar; the third, the Shechaniah, or cloud that rested upon the mercyseat; the fourth, the Urim and Thummim which were in the breastplate of the high priest; and the fifth, the spirit of prophecy. For though there were the prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, at the time of, and shortly after, the restoration; yet the spirit of prophecy ceased with Malachi, and did not reappear until John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus... The lamentation of the church here, then, was, that she saw not her signs. So now, the church of the living God, the regenerate family of Zion, have often reason to pour out the same melancholy complaint. Signs of God's favour, marks and testimonies of his work of grace upon their souls, are often so out of sight, so buried in obscurity, so enveloped in clouds of darkness, that the living family are compelled, from soul feeling, to take up the language of lamentation here expressed, and say, We see not our signs. J. C. Philpot. 1802-1869.

Our signs. The ordinary signs of Israel being God's peculiar people are the passover (Ex 12:13), the Sabbath (Ex 21:13), the temple, the altar, the sacrifices; the extraordinary ones are God's miracles wrought in his people's behalf (Ps 78:43). A. R. Fausset.

There is no more any prophet. By us it ought to be observed what they do not say: It is not, —here is no more any giant or warlike leader who may deliver us from the adversary: but, there is no more any prophet. And yet when the prophets were with them, they were contemptible in the eyes of all, maltreated by the wicked and put to death. Musculus.

Shall the enemy blaspheme the name for ever? The sinner never leaves his sin till sin first leaves him: did not death put a stop to his sin, he would never cease from sin. This may be illustrated by a similitude thus: A company of gamesters resolve to play all night, and accordingly they sit down to chess tables, or some other game; their candle, accidentally or unexpectedly, goes out, or is put out, or burnt out; their candle being out, they are forced to give over their game, and go to bed in the dark; but had the candle lasted all night, they would have played all night. This is every sinner's case in regard of sin: did not death put out the candle of life, the sinner would sin still. Should the sinner live for ever, he would sin for ever; and, therefore, it is a righteous thing with God to punish him for ever in hellish torments. Every impenitent sinner would sin to the days of eternity, if he might live to the days of eternity. O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? For ever, and evermore; or for ever and yet —for so the Hebrew loves to exaggerate: as if the sinner, the blasphemer, would set a term of duration longer than eternity to sin in. The psalmist implicitly saith, Lord, if thou dost but let them alone for ever, they will certainly blaspheme thy name for ever and ever. I have read of the crocodile, that he knows no maximum quod sic, he is always growing bigger and bigger, and never comes to a certain pitch of monstrosity so long as he lives. Quamdiu vivit crescit. Every habituated sinner would, if he were let alone, be such a monster, perpetually growing worse and worse. Thomas Brooks.

God is my King of old, etc. Let us learn from this verse how to think of our God. First, that he is our King, and therefore we ought to be encouraged to pray for his help against the ungodly, and to place ourselves in entire submission to his will and government. Secondly, that he is not a new God, but the Ancient of Days, and that whatever salvation has been wrought not only in the midst of his own people, but in the midst of the whole earth, even among those by whom he is not acknowledged, has been wrought by him. Let this meaning strike at the root of all trust in other gods, or in any creature. Musculus.

Thou didst divide the sea. Thou, O Lord, didst make firm the flowing sea, that there might be a way for our fathers to pass over, and in those very waters through which thou didst lead thy ransomed, thou didst utterly overthrow the hosts of Egypt, who were like dragons for ferocity, as they sought to devour thy people. Jansenius.

Thou brakest the heads of leviathan, etc. It is spoken of Pharaoh's army which God destroyed in the Red Sea; that is, the destruction of the Egyptians was a pledge of the accomplishment of God's promise to cast the Canaanite out of the promised land, and to give them possession of it. Many hardships they were to pass through in the wilderness, but God gave them this mercy as food, not to their bodies, but food to their faith, while they were in the wilderness: therefore, those former great and glorious promises were accomplished. So that former mercies are food that God gives unto the faith of his people to feed upon, till he hath perfectly accomplished whatever he hath promised unto his church. William Strong.

Leviathan. The Arabic Lexicographers (quoted by Bochart) affirm that Pharao, in the Egyptian language, signified a crocodile. Parkhurst remarks that in Schenchzer's Physica Sacra may be seen a medal with Julius Caesar's head on one side, and on the reverse a crocodile with this inscription: AGYPTO CAPTA, Egypt taken. M. Mariette has discovered at Karnak a monumental stele of Thothmes on which the king says of himself,

"Fierce as the huge crocodile, I made them see the glory of my God;

Terrible Lord of the waters, none dare even approach him."

Leviathan is a name given not only to the crocodile, but to the whale and other large fishes. The Zum, or people inhabiting the wilderness, are supposed, by many sensible writers, to be the Ichthyophagy, or fish eaters, who occupied, according to ancient authors, a part of the coast of the Red Sea. The psalmist is here speaking of Israel's passage through its waters; and it is a singular fact that Diodorus, who lived about two thousand years ago, mentions a tradition, prevalent amongst these very persons, to the effect that in the time of their remote forefathers an extraordinary reflux took place, the channel of the gulf becoming dry, and the green bottom appearing, whilst the whole body of waters rolled away in an opposite direction. There can be little doubt that this strange people would have used for food, and various purposes, such great fish as might have been cast ashore on the termination of the miracle. Most writers give this text a figurative meaning, but that is no reason why it may not be also literally understood; for such a mode of speaking is common in the Bible. But whether we understand it one way or the other, we have the testimony of heathens to its propriety and force. If, by the term Leviathan, we believe Egypt to be intended, and by its heads those petty states into which that country was divided, the traditions of India, and the East, inform us that such designations were well understood, and therefore beautifully applicable. Anon., in "Biblical and Theological Gleanings"; by William O'Neill. 1854.

Meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. May not the exact meaning be that even as the sea monsters washed upon the shore furnished food for the inhabitants of the Red Sea, even so the symbolic dragon power of Egypt when destroyed at the Red Sea, became food for Israel's faith, and even furnished provision for their wilderness journey by the spoil which was cast up by the tide. C. H. S.

Flood. God in dividing Jordan did not only divide the water that ordinarily belonged to the river, or the water which came from its fountains, but also the extraordinary additional waters by the great rains a little before harvest. So God cleaved both the fountain, i.e., the fountain water, and the flood. Jonathan Edwards.

The day is thine, the night also is thine.

Ah! do not be sorrowful, darling,

And do not be sorrowful, pray —

Taking the year together, my dear,

There is not more night than day.

And God is God, my darling,

Of night as well as day;

And we feel and know that we can go,

Wherever he leads the way.

A God of the night, my darling,

Of the night of death so grim,

The gate that leads out of life, good wife,

Is the gate that leads to Him. From "In the Sere and Yellow Leaf, "in "The Circling Year."

Day. Night. These changes are according to a fixed law. Day and night are the ordinances of heaven upon earth for the growth of earth's life, and, if we could trace the sunshine and the dark in every follower of God, we should see them arranged with equal wisdom. It is a more complex work, but, be sure of this, there is order in it all, and the hand that rules the world in its orbit, and that makes it fulfil its course through light and shade, is governing our lives for a higher than earthly end. One feature of the law is presented so far for our guidance. It is a law of alternation. It is day and night, and, let us thank God, it is also in due time night and day. Each has its time and use. John Ker. 1869.

Thou hast prepared the light. It is but recently that we have been able to form any conception of the power of light as an agent in the economy of the globe; the discoveries of Actinism are among the most interesting and marvellous of natural science. The discovery that "no substance can be exposed to the sun's rays without undergoing a chemical change, "has been described as scarcely less important in its effects than the discovery of the law of gravitation. A sunbeam is one of the most powerful of all the agencies of nature; magical as it is, it breaks up the strongest chemical affinities; it is the author of colour, and it is the creator of a myriad combinations, which all tend to the harmony of the world. Nor ought we to forget the moral influence of light. We are all aware of the sensible difference produced in our moral natures by a fine day or a dark day. Light gives zest and tone to the spirits; light gives buoyancy and joy to the soul; light crowds the chambers of the mind with ideas; Light is Life: the merest insect could not live without light; and even blind natures receive, in those organs which are not the property of vision, the assurance of its benignant operations. Light is Order: and at its wand and command the separation takes place, and dark and light pair off into their separate ranks. Light is Beauty: whether in the refulgence of the moon; the chill sparkle of the stars; the unrivalled play of colours in the attenuated film of the soap bubble, at once the toy of childhood and the tool of the sage; the rich play of tints in the mother of pearl, or the rich gorgeous rays in the plumes of birds. Light is Purity: forms that rankle out of the glance of its clear, steady beam, contract around themselves loathness and disgust, and become the seats of foulness and shame. Light is Growth: where it is, we know that nature pursues her work in life and in vigour; light gives vitality to the sap; light removes obstructions from the pathway of the growing agencies, while, in its absence, forms become stunted, gnarled, and impaired. Light is Health: as it darts its clear and brilliant points to and fro, it brings in its train those blessings of elasticity and energy, which give the fulness of being —which is perfect health to the expanding forms. There is a fine consistency, when Scripture makes light to contain, as it were, the seeds of all things, and when the prelude of all creation is made to be those words, "God said, Let there be light." This, then, is the part light is made to play in the history of the world; it is used by moral power to become the creator of moral influence. What a long series of creations elapsed before moral causes seemed to operate in the affairs of the globe! But he, whose nature and whose names are Light, had given to light its distinct being and work; and that creative word, "Let there be light, "spoke right forwards to the moral energies which were to be superinduced by its creation. Thus light, it is true, went before all things, and became the cause of moral consequences; but then, this arose from the divine hand, whence darted its benevolent beams. It was God who gave it its divine commission, to divine between light and darkness; it was God who made it the fountain of knowledge and of day; it was God who gave to it the faculty to become, in turn, a creator, and to warm into life and beauty a myriad seeds and shape of loveliness. E. Paxton Hood.

The light and the sun. I was considerably affected in my younger days by the long standing objection, that Moses made light to exist before the creation of the sun; as books then usually taught, what some still fancy, that there could not have been light without this luminary. But not choosing, on such important point, to attach my faith to any general assertion, I sought to find out if any investigator of the nature of light had perceived any distinction in its qualities or operation, which made it a fluid or matter independent of the sun. It was not easy, before the year 1791, to meet with the works of any student of nature on such a subject, as it had been little attended to; but I at length saw the fact asserted by Henckel, a German of the old school, of some value in his day, and soon afterwards some experiments were announced in England which confirmed the supposition. It has been a favourite point of attention with me ever since; and no truth in philosophy seems to be now more clearly ascertained than that light has a distinct existence, separate and independent of the sun. This is a striking confirmation of the Mosaic record; for that expressly distinguishes the existence and operation of light from the solar action upon it, and from that radiation of it which is connected with his beams and presence. By Moses, an interval of three days is placed between the luminous creation, and the appearance and position of the sun and moon. Light was, therefore, operating by its own laws and agencies, without the sun, and independently of his peculiar agency, from the first day to the fourth of our terrestrial fabrication. But from the time that the sun was placed in his central position, and his rays were appointed to act on our earth, they have been always performing most beneficial operations, essential to the general course of things. Sharon Turner (1768-1847), in "The Sacred History of the World."

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. The actual distribution of sea and land over the surface of the globe is likewise of the highest importance to the present condition of organic life. If the ocean were considerably smaller, or if Asia and America were concentrated within the tropics, the tides, the oceanic currents, and the meteorological phenomenon on which the existence of the vegetable and animal kingdoms depend, would be so profoundly modified, that it is extremely doubtful whether man could have existed, and absolutely certain that he could never have risen to a high degree of civilisation. The dependence of human progress upon the existing configuration of the globe necessarily leads us to the conclusion that both must be the harmonious work of the same Almighty Power, and that a divine and immutable plan has from all eternity presided over the destinies of our planet. It is almost superfluous to point out how largely the irregular windings and undulations of the coasts, the numerous islands scattered over the face of the waters, the promontories stretching far away into the domains of the sea, and the gulfs plunging deeply into the bosom of the land, have contributed to the civilisation of the human race by multiplying its points of contact with the ocean, the great highway of nations. G. Hartwig, in "The Harmonies of Nature." 1866.

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. Consider the form of the earth. It is known to be globular, and in shape nearly like an orange. And why has God chosen that form? With a view that it might be inhabited by living creatures on its whole surface. In order to this, every part of the globe must have sufficient light and heat, the wind must have a free circulation, and the water must be diffused over all its parts. The rotundity of the earth is best calculated to promote these conveniences: for this round form admits light and heat, without which there could be no life all over the globe. The revolutions of day and night, the changes in the temperature of the air, heat, cold, dryness or moisture, could not have taken place without this form. Had the earth been square, had it been conic, had it been an hexagon, or any other angular form, what must the consequence have been? The greatest part of our earth would have been drowned, whilst the rest, would have languished with drought. Some countries must have been torn in pieces by storms, while others would have been deprived of the wholesome circulation of wind. I have new reason to admire the supreme wisdom, when I reflect on the enormous mass which composes our world. Were the earth softer, or more spongy than it is, men and animals would sink into it; were it harder and less penetrable, it would resist the toil of the labourer, and lose its capacity for producing and nourishing the multitude of plants, herbs, roots, and flowers, which now spring out of its bosom. There are regular and distinct strata found in the earth; some of stone, others of metal and minerals. There are numerous and evident advantages which result from these in favour of mankind. Do not the strata of gravel, sunk deep in the earth, purify and in a manner filter the water and render it sweet and fit for use? On the surface of the earth there is a varied prospect; there is an admirable mixture of plains and valleys, of small hills and mountains. The man must be blind indeed that does not see the wise purpose of the Great Author of nature, in thus diversifying the surface of the earth. Were the earth an even plain, how much beauty would it lose? Besides, this variety of valley and mountain is very favourable to the health of living creatures, and were there no hills, the earth would be less peopled with men and animals. There would be fewer plants, fewer simples and trees. We should be deprived of metals and minerals: the vapours would not be condensed, nor should we have either springs or rivers. Must we not then acknowledge that the whole plan of the earth, its form, its inward and outward construction, are all regulated according to the wise laws, which all combine towards the pleasure and happiness of mankind? O thou supreme Author of nature, thou hast done all things well! Whichever way I turn my eyes, whether I penetrate into the interior structure of the globe thou hast appointed me to inhabit, or whether I examine its surface, I everywhere discover marks of profound wisdom and infinite goodness. Christopher Christian Sturm.

Thou hast made summer and winter. Plasmasti ea. Now thou hast done all this and more for mankind in general, wilt thou be wanting to thy church? John Trapp.

Winter. As if fatigued with so many cares, nature now rests; this, however, is only to collect new force, again to be employed for the good of the world. But even this rest, which nature enjoys in winter, is a secret activity. A new creation is preparing in silence. The necessary dispositions are already making, that the desolate earth may again recover the children she has lost. The corn which is to serve us for food, already shoots. The fibres of plants, which are to adorn our fields and gardens, begin insensibly to open. O my beneficent Creator! Here I find fresh cause to adore thy wisdom and power. The repose which nature takes it as worthy to enter into the plan of thy wise providence, as the activity she shows in spring and summer. Thou hast wisely combined the several revolutions of the earth, thou hast equally divided its rest and labour. It is thy will that each day should vary the scenes of nature, in that way which is most proper for the perfection of the whole. Pardon, O God, my temerity, If I have been so stupid as to blame anything in the government of the world. I am more than ever convinced that all the plans of thy providence, though they may appear extraordinary to my weak reason, are replete with wisdom and goodness. Christopher Christian Sturm. 1750-1786.

O deliver not, etc. How weak soever the church be, and how many and strong soever the enemy be, yet cannot they all devour the church, except the Lord should deliver his church over into their hands, against which evil the church hath ground of confidence to pray, O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked; for he hath given his church wings, and a hiding place too, as the comparison imports, if he please to give her the use thereof also. David Dickson.

The people of God are taught in this form of supplication how to edge and keen their prayers, and make them vigorous; to wit, by disclaiming any ability or sufficiency in themselves; by styling themselves a congregation of poor, silly, weak doves, no way able to encounter an army of bestial, cunning, crafty, bloody, boisterous enemies. This plea the people of God make use of: "With thee the fatherless findeth mercy, "Ho 14:3. John Langley.

The soul of thy turtledove. They compare themselves to a turtledove, whose nature leads it, in whatever way it may be afflicted, not to indulge in noisy impatience, but to mourn in secret; so the afflicted people of Israel were unable to do anything but breathe their sighs and groans to God. Musculus.

Thy turtledove. God's people are an harmless, innocent people, altogether unable and insufficient to help themselves against their enemies, who are numerous, cruel, and barbarous. Hence they are resembled to sheep, doves; called in the Word, fatherless, orphans, little ones, babes, poor, simple, needy. They are men bound to their good behaviour, may not harbour so much as a bad thought against any; are called to suffer, not to do wrong. Julian did jeer at them for this; he would strike them on the one cheek, and tell them that their Master taught them to turn the other; his soldiers would take away their cloaks, and mind them that they must part with their coats also. Out of their own dispositions they judge of others, therefore may easily be deceived and entrapped. Thus Gedaliah, that sweet man, would not believe the relation of Johanan touching the conspiracy of the crocodile Ishmael against him; nay, was even angry with him for his faithful dealing that way, and it cost him his life. Jer 40:16,41. That famous admiral of France, Jasper Coligny, though he had information and intelligence from sundry parts beyond the seas, that the court did intend to mischief him, and that there was no security in their promises and agreements, though backed with oaths, thrust himself, notwithstanding, upon the lion, and was smoothed with one paw and torn with the other: being such, they lie open to the rage of many adversaries... One would think these turtles should rather win the love of all that come near them than incur the hatred of any, for they are quiet and peaceable persons. In the mount of the Lord there is no hurt done (Isa 11:9), yet, notwithstanding, they are maligned by a world of people. Because they are not like them (1Pe 4:4); because they are not of their number (Joh 15:19); because their persons and their sacrifices are more acceptable with God than the others' (Ge 4:4); because they reprove them for their evil ways (Joh 3:20); because they are for the most part poor and mean, have no great forecast in worldly affairs, are no deep politicians, they are such as those pauperes Lugdunensis, those poor men of Lyons in France, therefore are exposed to beasts and lions (Mt 1:25); because they mourn for sin in themselves and others: they quarrel with the dove even because of her mournful note. They will jeer at sighing sisters, and men that hang the head like a bulrush; yet, seeing this bulrush cannot grow without mire and mud, why should it not hang the head? John Langley.

Thy turtledove. This expression may, perhaps, be further illustrated from the custom, ancient and modern, of keeping doves as favourite birds (see Theocritus v. 96, and Virgil Eclog. 3. v 68, 69), and from the care taken to secure them from such animals as are dangerous to them. James Merrick.

Turtle Doves, of whatever species they be, whether travellers or domesticated, are equally preserved by the inhabitants of Egypt: they do not kill, and never eat them. Wishing to know the motive of this abstinence among people who possess so little in the greater part of their action, I learnt that it was for the honour of humanity. It is a consequence of the respect due to hospitality, which the Arabs hold in such high estimation, and of which they have communicated some shades to the people who dwell among them. They would regard it as a violation of this hospitality not to spare those birds, which come with a perfect confidence to live amongst them, and there to become skilful but useless receptors of love and tenderness. The very farmer, who sees his harvest a prey for the flights of turtle doves which alight on his fields, neither destroys nor harasses them, but suffers them to multiply in tranquillity. C. N.S. de M. Sonnini. 1775-1811.

Forget not the congregation of thy poor. Thy poor, by way of discrimination. There may be a greater distance between poor and poor, than there is between poor and rich. There are many "ragged regiments, ""congregations of poor, "whom the Lord will forget for ever; but his poor shall be saved. And these poor are of two sorts; either poor in regard of wealth and outward substance, or poor in regard of friends or outward assistance. A rich man, especially a godly rich man, may be in a poor case, destitute and forsaken, wanting patronage and protection. God saveth the poor in both notions, both those that have no friends, and those that have no estates. Joseph Caryl.

Have respect. The word, in the original signification of it, imports a fastening of the eyes upon some object, that a man desires to look into. Hence, by a metaphor, it is transferred to the eyes of the mind, and signifies a serious weighing and consideration of a thing. God is said to "wink at the times of ignorance, "or not to regard it, Ac 17:30. God's people here look at God, as if he did wink at his covenant, and neither look at it, nor them in their miseries. The psalmist desires him that he would be mindful of it for his people's deliverance. Francis Taylor, in "A Sermon preached before the House of Commons, " entitled "God's Covenant the Churches Plea." 1645.

Have respect unto the covenant. This presseth the Lord more than the former; this is the close grappling, as it were, with him in the words of Jacob: "I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me." This is the throwing out of the greatest sheet anchor in the tempest, for it lays hold on God's faithfulness, and truth, and fatherly goodness. If they be not in covenant with God, it may be charged upon them. —"You have violated my holy law, you have incensed my wrath against you by your perverse ways, therefore I will not help you, but give you up; "but now the souls that be in covenant with God will not be put off so (be it spoken with holy reverence), but will cry out, O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, yet have respect unto thy covenant. Yet be sure you walk uprightly before the Lord...With what face can any one say, Lord, have respect unto thy covenant, when he casts his own covenant behind his back, and cannot say with the prophet David, "I have a respect to all thy commandments"? How canst thou say, "Deliver me not up to the many beasts without, "when thou art not afraid to be delivered up to thy vile, bestial lusts and affections that are within? Thou hypocrite, first labour the subduing of the monsters that are within thee, then a fair way will be open to have thine enemies subdued round about thee. John Langley.

Have respect unto the covenant. Those persons and preachers who decline to think and speak of gospel mercies and free salvation as secured by covenant, deprive themselves and others of much of the blessed comforts of God's word. Such was not the manner of the inspired psalmist. William S. Plumer.

God seems to his people to neglect his covenant, when they are oppressed by ungodly men. So Asaph complains. After an acknowledgment that God was the Shepherd of Israel, and so in covenant with his people, and accordingly had wonderfully brought them out of Egypt, and made them flourish marvellously in the land of Canaan, he attributes their misery to God's neglect. Many reasons may be given of this unkind carriage of God's people to him. As, first, because their misery blinds them; and blind men when they are smitten suspect every man that comes near them. Secondly, self love makes us suspect any rather than ourselves, yea, even God himself. The people should have reflected upon themselves that were innocent, but in their sorrows they reflect upon God that was innocent. We are all Adam and Eve's children. When Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, she tacitly lays the fault upon God: "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Ge 3:13. Hadst thou not made a subtil serpent I had not broken thy commandment. Adam lays it openly upon God: "The woman who thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Ge 3:12. Hadst thou not given me such a companion to betray me, I had been innocent. So we their posterity, when trouble is upon us, suspect God's breaking covenant, rather than our own. Thus our nurses beat the stone when children stumble through their own neglect. Thirdly, in time of need we most commonly suspect such as are best able to help us. The sick man, if he be in danger of death, suspects not his ignorant neighbours, but his skilful physician. He that is oppressed in his estate, when the sentence goes against him, suspects none more than the advocate, or the judge. We know God is best able to help us; our corruption, therefore, makes us to suspect him most, if our troubles continue. Fourthly, we most suspect those who, as we think, have most reason to help us in our miseries, and do it not. If the servant wants meal or apparel, he complains not of his fellow servants but of his master, who is tied by covenant to provide for him; if the child be wronged by the servants, he lays not the fault upon his brethren but upon his father, who by bands of nature is obliged to take care of him. So we, being in covenant with God, wonder not much if others fail us, but complain heavily if God seems to neglect us. Francis Taylor.

The psalmist moves God in prayer to look to his covenant by this argument: For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty; that is, of cruel men, or of men so full of cruelty, that they deserve rather to be called cruelty than cruel: this sort of men inhabit and fill up all those places where the light of holy truth doth not shine. Now, if they who want the light, or have no true knowledge of God among them, are hereby prepared for the acting of all manner of wickedness, how much more are they prepared for the acting of wickedness who have thrust the light from them, and are in dark places of their own making? The prophet Hosea shows (Ho 4:1), that where there is no knowledge of God in a land, for want of means, there is no truth nor mercy (that is, there is none exercised) in that land, but oppression, deceit, and falsehood bear down all: how much more must it be so when there is no knowledge of God in a land, because of the contempt of means, and rebellion against the light? What wickedness will not they do in the dark, who put out the candle that they may not see what they do? Joseph Caryl.

(second clause). This might have some literal meaning. The dark places of the earth, some have thought, may here describe in the first instance, the caves, the dens, and the woods of the land; for there are many such (as travellers testify) in the land of Judaea, and in unsettled times they have often been the abode of robbers and murderers, who have thence sallied forth to molest and cut off the travellers, to ravish peaceful villages, to waylay and plunder the merchant, to commit all sorts of crimes, and then to return in impunity to these dark retreats, where they laugh at all law, human or divine; they quaff, with horrid pleasure, the recollection of the widow's tears, and listen with inhuman joy to the echoing remembrances of the orphan's moan and the dying father's shriek. But what a land thus infested would be, is but a faint image of the heathen world. Wherever heathenism spreads itself, there are the dark places of the earth. The Scripture often tells us that. John Hambleton. 1839.

The dark places. An allusion, as sometimes interpreters conceive, to the dens of wild beasts, wherein they hide themselves to seize upon their prey, Ps 104:21-22. To these cruel men are compared. Ps 10:8-9. "He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor." Such places oppressors and robbers choose. Others take it for an allusion to prisons and dark dungeons void of light. As the prophet, Isa 42:7, describes a prison: "To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." So trouble in Scripture is compared to darkness, and prosperity to light; because darkness is irksome, and light comfortable: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; "and then the sorry hiding places whither God's people went to hide themselves are here meant. Yet, could they not there be quiet, but were pursued, found out, and spoiled by their adversaries. Others take dark places for obscure and mean places, as dark men, in the original, are called mean men in our translation, Pr 22:29. And then it may either signify that the meanest men did oppress God's people, or that the poorest and meanest of God's people were not spared. Such usage have we found in our time, when the poor cottages of our foes have sent out pillagers, and no cottagers of ours have escaped spoiling in diverse places. Francis Taylor.

Cruelty. Heathenism is cruel. It is not changed in character since the days when parents made their children to pass through fire to Moloch. At this very day, for instance, infanticide prevails in China; and the "law, "says a book of authority —"the law, otherwise so rigorous, does not take the slightest cognisance of that crime, nor ever subject those guilty of it to punishment. Every morning before it is light, waggons traverse the different quarters of the city of Pekin to receive the dead infants." Well may they go "before it is light; ""the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." "The missionaries of that city obtained details, which justify belief that the number of infants (chiefly females) destroyed there is upwards of three thousand annually." Think of this same proportion, extended throughout that densely peopled empire. Among the same people suicide is also of frequent occurrence. What a contrast with the religion which stays the rash hand, and calls out, "Do thyself no harm!" We might pass to India; and there the flames of the funeral piles, on which so many widows were annually burnt, had hardly expired, when we were shocked, only a few years since, with other proofs of the cruelty of heathenism. What painful details were those, which our government brought to light respecting the secret murderers of India! What think you of a vast fraternity of murderers, consisting of many thousands of persons, which has existed from generation to generation, which has been ramified over the whole country from Cape Comorin to the Himalayan mountains, which has flourished alike under Hindu, Mahometan, and British rulers, and which has every year destroyed multitudes of victims —and all this under the sanction of religion? The murderous system, they say, has been enjoined them by the goddess Kalee, who is represented as having made a grant of half the human race to her votaries, (to be murdered, that is) according to certain prescribed forms. John Hambleton.

If we are compelled to close our most solemn and urgent devotions, and our most earnest supplications, without seeing one ray of light beaming upon our path, it may comfort us to remember that so the pious psalmist closed this complaint. To hope against hope is the most blessed kind of hope. William S. Plumer.

1. The divine displeasure a fact.

2. It is but in measure, and we are very liable to exaggerate it.

3. Even while it lasts our relation to him is unaffected: Sheep of thy pasture.

4. Our business is to enquire the reason of it, and act accordingly.

(second clause). The Lord's anger with his people compared to smoke.

1. It is not a consuming fire.

2. It suggests fear of the fire.

3. It darkens the light of joy.

4. It blinds the eyes of faith.

5. It checks the breath of life.

6. It blackens the beauty of our worldly comforts.

1. The Lord's relation to his people.

(a) Election.

(b) Redemption.

(c) Indwelling.

2. The prayer arising from it: Remember.

Church mischief.

1. The church has enemies.

2. Wickedness in the church is their great weapon.

3. This causes much desolation to weak saints, to enquirers, to peace, to prayer, to usefulness.

4. The cure for it is God's interposition.

Verses 3-4. The power of prayer.

1. On one side were,

(a) Desolation: perpetual, etc.

(b) Desecration.

(c) Declamation: enemies roar. (d) Demonstration: they set up.

2. On the other side is,

(a) Supplication.

(b) This brings God to the rescue effectually and quickly.

Ensigns for signs. The craft of Satan is supplanting truth with deceptive counterfeits.

True fame. To build for God with labour, daring, diligence, skill, etc.

Vandal work against the truth of God.

Verses 6-7. Things feared by a church.

1. Injury to her doctrines or ordinances: carved work.

2. The fire of strife, division, etc.

3. The defilement of sin. Either of these three will throw a church down; let her guard and pray against them.

The destruction of rural churches, the aim of our enemies: the injury they would so do, and our duty to prevent it: the means the destroyers use: bribery, oppression, etc. Our proper method for sustaining such churches.

(first clause).

1. There are such things as signs, that is, tokens and marks of God's special favour to the soul.

2. There is also a seeing those signs when God, the Holy Ghost, is pleased to shine upon them.

3. There is a third state, where there is not seeing the signs, those signs being enveloped in darkness, dimness, and obscurity. J. C. Philpot.

A prayer for revival.

1. How God is reproached.

2. What are the ill effects of it.

3. When we may expect him to arise.

1. The patience of God with man: He 'withdraws his hand, even,' etc., he hesitates to strike.

2. The impatience of man with God: "pluck it, "etc. G. R.

1. The sovereignty of God.

2. Its antiquity.

3. Our loyalty to it.

4. The practical character of his reign: working.

5. The graciousness of it: working salvation. 6. The place of its operation: in the midst of the earth.

God's defeat of our enemies, and the benefit accruing to ourselves.

The wonderful nature of gracious supplies, illustrated by the smitten rock.

God present alike in all dispensations of providence.

Verses 16-17.

1. The God of grace is the God of nature: The day in thine, etc.

2. The God of nature is the God of grace: the wisdom, the power, the faithfulness the same. See Psalm 19. G. R.

The soul of the believer compared to a turtledove.

1. The title given to heathen nations: dark places of the earth. Not without the light of nature, or of reason, or of natural conscience, or of philosophy, as of Greece and Rome; but without the light of revelation.

2. Their condition: full of, etc.: cruelty in their public, social, and private relationships. See Romans 1: "without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful."

3. Their part in the covenant. This is known from their part in its promises, and in prophecies: I will give thee the heathen, etc.

4. The prayer of others on their behalf: Have respect, etc.; Oh send forth thy light, etc.

The conversion of the world will be in answer to the prayers of the church.

God pleading his own cause in providential visitations of nations and individuals, as also in remarkable conversions and awakenings.

1. The glory of our cause: it is the Lord's own.

2. The hope of our cause: he will plead it himself.

3. The hope thus derivable from the violence of man: it will move the Lord to arise.