and is bold in the thought that His face is hidden, and that He does not see. His blasphemous trust and comfort are in the unrighteous government of God, and vain indeed they are. 13. Arise, O Lord God, and lift up Thine hand forget not the poor. 14. Wherefore should the wicked blaspheme God while he doth say in his heart, Tush, Thou God carest not for it. : The one refuge in temptation and in persecution is prayer. The wicked lies unto his own heart, for God hath not forgotten. It may be that He is waiting, but He is judging too. There is no more dreadful speech, no deeper insult to the majesty of God, than to impute to Him that He cares not for the right doing or the wrong-doing of the creatures He has made. 15. Surely Thou hast seen it for Thou beholdest ungodliness and wrong. : 16. That Thou mayest take the matter into Thine hand the poor committeth himself unto Thee; for Thou art the helper of the friendless. 17. Break Thou the power of the ungodly and malicious: take away his ungodliness, and Thou shalt find none. He has beheld all the cruelty and falsehood of the wicked, and all the sorrows and sufferings of the poor; for He is ever beholding all that is. He saw the affliction of His people in Egypt, and the cruelty of their taskmasters; so will He see the sufferings of His elect in the latter days. So does He see all the suffering of them that are oppressed now. We may safely, if we can only gain sufficient faith, leave all things in the hand of God; for 'He knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.' He Who is the Father of the fatherless, and the God of all comfort, will at length cut short the career of the oppressor. He will come to search out his sin, and to take away his power, and at His coming he will be struck down like one whose arm is broken with a blow. He will utterly perish and come to nothing before the revelation of the presence of God. 18. The Lord is King for ever and ever and the heathen are perished out of the land. He is, hath been, and shall be, an all-righteous King, of Whose kingdom there shall be no end;' but then shall His righteousness shine forth in brighter majesty, when all that is wrong and vile is crushed and quelled, and perfect holiness and perfect truth are the visible and mighty pillars of His unending throne. And all that are unbelieving, and cruel, and impure, and liars against His truth, shall be driven by their own goading consciences from His kingdom unto their own place. 19. Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the F poor Thou preparest their heart, and Thine ear hearkeneth thereto; 20. To help the fatherless and poor unto their right that the man of the earth be no more exalted against them. He heareth always. He hath taught us how to pray, and He hearkens to the prayer which He Himself hath taught us. He giveth grace to pray, that in our prayer we may pray for grace. He is an everlasting Father, Who ever loveth those children who obey Him, and keepeth them for His own, that He alone may be their Helper and their Trust ; and that no mortal being, formed from the clay of earth, may challenge to himself that reverence, and that obedience and worship, which the children of God can pay only to their heavenly Father and their eternal and immortal King. This Psalm in the Hebrew has no title. In the LXX. and the Vulgate it forms a part of the preceding Psalm, and therefore in those translations from this point to the 147th the Psalms are numbered as one behind the Hebrew original and the English translations. Both from its style, and its close connection with the subject of the preceding Psalm, it may be considered to have been written by David. The Syriac version bears the title," of the enemy's attack upon Adam and his race, and how Christ will quell his arrogance;" and in accordance with this the earlier interpreters have seen in it a reference, not merely to oppressors and ungodly men in general, but to "that wicked one whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying won.. ders," (2 Thess. ii. 8, 9). The Psalms from the 9th to the 14th, being six in number, form a group connected among themselves and having one common subject-the oppressions, wrongs, and seductions which the right-doers suffer from the treacherous malice and deceitfulness of the wicked. They are a warning and a preparation for the Church, against that last great persecution of Antichrist foretold by the Spirit, which will unite both the violence of tyranny and the seductions of heresy in itself; and of which all spiritual wickedness and cruelty, and abuse of power, whether in Churches, in nations, or in individuals, are foreshadowings and types. PSALM xi. In Domino confido. : 1. In the Lord put I my trust how say ye then to my soul, that she should flee as a bird unto the hill? 2. For lo, the ungodly bend their bow, and make ready their arrows within the quiver: that they may privily shoot at them which are true of heart. The strength of the believer is in his faith. When the time of darkness, of danger, and of trial draws near, our timid spirits are only too ready to echo the suggestion that it would be well if we could flee away, and leave this scene of daily strife and daily weariness. Who, however firm in his own convictions, has not, in the midst of whispered doubts of what is true, and loud assertions of what is false, and the mockeries and sneers of the unbelieving and the wicked, been tempted to a hasty prayer, that he might be taken from it all, and be allowed to flee away, like a bird startled from the open field to her hidingplace among the distant hills? So, doubtless, was David tempted to feel while hunted 'like a partridge in the mountains' by those who sought his life. The remedy must be to bide God's time, and to trust in Him, this is that 'shield of faith, wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.' 3. For the foundations will be cast down : and what hath the righteous done? Heb. For the foundations are overturned. What can the righteous do? A little trouble makes us despond. The faith even of those who strive to be true of heart is equal but to a very slight assault; and as it fails, it seems to us as if all truth and holiness were failing too. A persecution comes, and the very foundations of the Church seem to totter, and the wavering Christian loses heart and hope, and knows not what to do. A transitory denial of the doctrines he has believed, a short-lived withdrawal of the Sacraments which have been his comfort, become to his imperfect faith a very overturning of the foundations of belief, and a motive to despair in what seems to him his unmerited perplexity. But He Who is the One perfectly righteous hath by His own death and passion laid them sure; He is Himself the foundation, which nothing can ever overturn. 4. The Lord is in His holy temple the Lord's seat is in heaven. : 5. His eyes consider the poor and His lids try the children of men. eye |