Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 89:48

This Psalm is one of those twelve that are marked in the forehead with Maschil; that is, a Psalm giving instruction. It consisteth of as many verses as the year doth of weeks, and hath like the year, its summer and winter. The summer part is the former; wherein, the church having reaped a most rich crop (the best blessings of Heaven and earth) the Psalmist breaketh forth into the praises of their gracious Benefactor, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: so it begins, and so he goeth on a great way. Who now would expect anything but mercies, and singing, and summer all the way? But summer ceaseth, and winter commences, at Ps 89:38: But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth, with thine anointed. Mercies and singing are now turned into troubles and mourning. But nothing shall you hear but bitter querimonies and expostulations till you come to the last verse. There the good man's come to himself again. Though God were angry with his people, he cannot part with God in discontent. Though God had laden them with crosses, he lifts up his head, and presents God with blessing; Blessed be the Lord forevermore. Amen, and Amen. He blesseth him as well for winter as for summer, for troubles as for mercies. And thus the last verse of Psalm having as much affinity with the first in matter, as the last day of the year hath with the first in season; if we circle the Psalm, and bring both ends together, we find a fit resemblance between the year and it. The text is one of the Psalmist's winter drops; a black line from that pen, which erstwhile was so filled with joy, and wrote nothing but rubrics. He complains in the next precedent verse, of the brevity of his own life (it was like a winter's day, very short); in this, of the instability of man's life; as though he had said, I am not the only mortal. Other men's lives, though haply clothed with more comforts than mine, are altogether as mortal as mine; for his interrogations are equivalent to strong negations. As to see sleep is to sleep; so to see or taste death, is to die. There is no surviving such a sight Death says, as God once to Moses, "There shall no man see me and live." Ex 33:20. —Thomas Du-gard, in a Funeral Sermon, 1648.