"

David may have been led by the Holy Ghost to write it when
in anguish of soul, as well as suffering of body; through such
a bruised reed the Spirit of God may have breathed. But surely
he meant to tell of One greater than David,-"the Man of
sorrows.”
Perhaps David had some seasons of anguish in his
wanderings in the wilderness of Judah that furnished a shadow
of the grief of Him who was to come, "bearing our griefs and
carrying our sorrows.' Awakened souls experience horror of
soul and alarming apprehensions of divine indignation, such
as this Psalm expresses. A clear sight of sin, while the face
of the Mediator is hid, produces this state of soul. Occasionally,
too, believers feel, from peculiar causes, glooms that may be ex-
pressed in the words of this Psalm more fitly than any other.
And particular clauses in it will express many of a believer's
frames, even as ver. 6. "Lord, how long?" was Calvin's favour-
ite utterance. Still, it is chiefly of the true David that this
is written. We may suppose every word used by Him in some
of those nights which He passed in desert places, or in the
garden of Gethsemane.

66

What cries are these? Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath.” The Head. Is not this the same voice that cried, "Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from me?" Again “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak." Is not this the same who said, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak?" (Matt. xxvi. 34.) We listen, and again He cries, " My soul is sore vexed.” Is it not the voice of Him who, as He entered the garden, spoke with such affecting sadness to his disciples, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful?" (Matt. xxvi. 38.) Yes, He said, "even unto death." Andin this Psalm we hear Him tell some of his forebodings of death. It seems to be the very hour referred to in Heb. vi. 7,—the hour of "strong crying and tears to Him who was able to save him from death." For here are his strong reasonings with God," In death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave, who shall give thee thanks?" This expostulation undoubtedly is such as a member of Christ could use; for Hezekiah used it (Isa. xxxviii. 18), pleading that, if taken away, he could do no more for the making known God's name and glory among men. But how peculiarly forcibly it becomes in the lips of Jesus! If he be given over to death,

Prophetic reference.

¿.e., left under its power, then neither He, nor any one of all
those whom the Father had given Him, can ever give praise.
The dark night becomes darker. It is midnight.
I am
weary with my groaning. Mine eye is consumed with grief.
It waxes old, because of all mine enemies.” "The eye is the
mirror and gauge of soundness, not merely as respects the soul,
but the body also," says a well-known commentator. On his
brow, anguish had shed more snows (see John viii. 57,) than
threescore winters, in their natural course, might else have
sprinkled there; for inconceivably stupendous must His view
of sin have been, and his sense of its loathsomeness, his dis-
covery of its hurt to God and man, and his horror under the
wrath due to it. But all at once there is a change. The
angel from heaven strengthens Him. (Luke xxii. 43.) He
is revived by the Father's promise, "I have glorified thee, and
will glorify thee again." He sees his foes
He sees his foes "confounded and
terrified" by the look of that very countenance, which they
once could spit upon (ver. 10).

It is only at this one point that this Psalm presents anything bearing on the prophetic future. But certainly it does at this turn present us with a glimpse of the Second Coming of Him whose First Coming was so full of woe. "The voice of the turtle is heard again," says a German commentator; and truly it is For, at ver. 8, the Suffering One sees "the glory that is to follow," and exclaims, "Depart from me ye workers of iniquity," words which are employed by himself in Luke xiii. 27, in describing the terms in which, as judge, He will address the multitudes of the unsaved on the Great Day, when He has risen up and has shut to the door.

so.

Was it not designed that this ending should draw more attention to the beginning? Let the sinner now consider the Suffering One, lest the sentence pass on him, "Depart." Come, and see here what a price was paid for the soul's redemption; and if you have felt anguish of spirit under a sense of deserved wrath, let it cease when you find the Man of sorrows presenting all his anguish as the atonement for your soul. Thus will the reader use aright this most pathetic Psalm, in meditating on which he is shewn

The comfortless couch of the Righteous One.

PSALM VII.

Shiggaion of David, which he sang unto the Lord, concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite.

1 O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust:

Save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:

2 Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.

3 O Lord my God, if I have done this ;-if there be iniquity in my hands;

4 If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me;

(Yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy!)

5 Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it;

Yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth,-and lay mine honour in the dust. Selah.

6 Arise, O Lord, in thine anger,-lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies:

And awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded.

7 So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about:

For their sakes therefore return thou on high.

8 The Lord shall judge the people! Judge me, O Lord,

According to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in

me.

9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end ;-but establish the just! For the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.

10 My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.

11 God judgeth the righteous,-and God is angry with the wicked every day. 12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword ;--he hath bent his bow, and made

it ready.

13 He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death;

He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.

14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity,

And hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.

15 He made a pit, and digged it,-and is fallen into the ditch which he made.

16 His mischief shall return upon his own head.

And his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.

17 I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness:

And will sing praise to the name of the Lord most high.

title.

THERE is something like excitement in the style of this Psalm. The tone and We do not find in it the calm, deep cries of one in anguish, but rather, the earnest, almost indignant, appeals of one whose righteous soul is vexed by a world's opposition.

"Jehovah, my God, in thee have I put my trust!

Save me from my persecutors !” (Ver. 1.)

It is the voice of one who betakes himself to Jehovah as his

Shiggaion.

The Contents.

only Adullam-cave, and who makes his cave of refuge ring with his vehement appeals. Horsley remarks there is in it complaint, supplication, prediction, crimination, commination, and thanksgiving.

Used by Christ.

Shiggaion," though some have attempted to fix on it a reference to the moral aspect of the world as depicted in this Psalm, is in all probability to be taken as expressing the nature of the composition. It conveys the idea of something erratic (, to wander), in the style; something not so calm as other psalms; and hence Ewald suggests, that it might be rendered, "a confused ode," a Dithyramb. This characteristic of excitement in the style, and a kind of disorder in the sense, suits Habakkuk iii. 1, the only other place where the word occurs.

But who was "Cush the Benjamite ?" None can give a decided answer, though all turn their eye to Saul, and seem nearly agreed that his calumnies against David gave occasion for the writing of this Psalm. The Targum hesitates not to say it is "Saul, the son of Kish." Hengstenberg concludes. that Cush, the Ethiopian, is a name for Saul, because of his dark, black hatred of David; others refer the name to some one of Saul's retinue who was as Ethiopian in heart as his master. This last conjecture may be the truth; for David had a variety of foes. But at all events, the Holy Spirit made use of some special attack of some one foe as his time for conveying to his servant this song. He is a "God who giveth songs in the night," and he has by this means given to his Church a song which every succeeding generation has felt appropriate in a world lying in wickedness, and which was never more appropriate than in these latter days.]

The true David, no doubt,took it up in the days of his flesh; and often may he have used it as part of his wondrous Liturgy, when alone in the hills of Galilee. The cry in ver. 9,–

"O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end!

And establish the just!

19

And the trier of the heart and reins be thou, O God! followed up by ver. 10, "My defence is in* God who saveth

* Literally, "My shield is upon God," like Psalm lxii. 8, "My salvation is upon God." The idea may be taken from the armour-bearer, ever ready at hand to give the needed weapon to the warrior.

giveth victory to) the upright in heart," may remind us of Him who elsewhere longs for the day of God in the words, "Till the day break and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense.'

From ver. 1 to ver. 5, innocence is pleaded against those The Contents. who are adversaries "without a cause.' This feature of en

mity, “without a cause," seems to have wounded the tender heart of our David very deeply; for in John xv. 25, we find him quoting another Psalm where the same words occur, and where the emphasis lies on "without a cause." The world has hated him, because it hated the holiness that furnished no cause of accusation; and so has it hated his members because of what resemblance they bear to their unblemished Head. The world's enmity is ever directed against the only thing in the saints which they are sure the Lord loves; and so they can appeal with their Head against "Those that without cause are our adversaries."

After a Selah-pause (see Psalm iv.), the tone changes. From ver. 6 onward, the future day of retribution comes into view. What an importunate cry is raised in ver. 6, “Arise, O Lord, in thine anger”-put on that fierce wrath which consumes all before it. While thy foes are raging (as in Psalm ii. 1), lift up thyself;" and all this because "Thou hast appointed a day in which thou wilt judge the world in righteousness. Had not Paul at Athens (Acts xvii. 31), his eye on this The judgment thou hast ordained?"

verse:

In ver. 7, we see all the tribes (?), gathered round the Lord's tribunal; and "over that congregation," or assembly, the Lord takes his seat-as if they were all met there, waiting the arrival of the Judge, who does at last appear, and walks up to his seat in the view of all. Is there not a reference to the long-expected arrival of one who had gone for a time to a far country in the word "return?" (Luke xix. 12.)

And now, ver. 8. The Lord judges the nations," acting in all the plenitude of the Judge's office-the office as held by Othniel, and Ehud, and Gideon, and Samson. As to right and wrong, he is what an ancient Roman was called, "Scopulus reorum"-every guilty man makes shipwreck on that rock;