"Ah, if our souls but poise and swing,
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true,
To the toil and the task we have to do;
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The heavenly Isle, on whose shining beach
The sights we love and the sounds we hear
Will be those of joy, and not of fear."
"David utters again strains of hope; not that faint and
common hope of possibility or probability, that after stormy days it may be
better with him, but a certain hope that shall never make ashamed; such a Hope
as springs from Faith, yes, in effect, is one with it. Faith rests upon the
goodness and truth of Him that has promised; and Hope, raising itself upon
Faith so established, stands up, and looks out to the future accomplishment of
the promise."—Leighton.
"On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. It
will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime--a day known to the Lord.
When evening comes, there will be light." Zech. 14:6-7
"Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you
disturbed within me? Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the
health of my countenance, and my God."—Verse 11.
We have now reached the close of this instructive Psalm—the
last entry in the experience of the Royal Exile. Here is the grand summing
up—"the conclusion of the whole matter." The curtain falls over the scene of
conflict, leaving the believer triumphant. As he began with prayer, he now
ends with praise; as he began with weeping, he now ends with rejoicing; as he
began mourning over the loss of his God, he ends exulting in Him as "the
health of his countenance." We are reminded of the Great Apostle reaching,
by successive steps in his high argument, new altitudes of faith and
hope—beginning with "no condemnation," until he ends with "no
separation;" mounting with loftier sweep and bolder pinion, until far
above the mists and clouds of the lower valley, he can utter the challenge,
"Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?" (Romans 8.)
Joyful is it when a protracted war, which has been draining
a nation's resources and rifling its homes, is drawing to a close—when an
army, amid hostile tribes, and the more fatal ravages of a hostile climate,
has succeeded in trampling out the ashes of rebellion, and is returning
triumphant from hard-contested fields of valor. Joyful is it when a noble
vessel, that has for long been wrestling with the storm, enters at last the
desired haven, when the voyagers, who for hours of anxiety and terror have
been hanging with bated breath between life and death, can now pass the
gladdening watchword from mouth to mouth—"Thank God, we are safe!" Joyful,
too, when the tried believer, as described in this Psalm—"persecuted, but
not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed,"—has surmounted wave after
wave, that has been threatening to sweep him from his footing on the Rock,
and, is made "more than conqueror through Him that loved him!" The wounded
Deer we found in the opening verse bounding through the forest glades, hit by
the archers, with glazed eye and panting sides, has now reached the coveted
Water-brooks—the fainting soul is now drinking at the great fountainhead of
consolation and joy. We have elsewhere an appropriate inspired comment on the
whole Psalm, with its successive experiences: "Many are the afflictions of
the righteous: but the Lord delivers him out of them all." (Psalm 34:19.)
This concluding verse is so far a repetition of the fifth;
and yet, as we cursorily noted in the introductory chapter, there is an
important difference between them, to which we may again for a moment advert.
In the former, it is on the part of the speaker the language of faith in the
midst of despondency, expressing assurance that something will be his, which
he has not yet attained: "Hope in God; for I shall YET praise Him for the
help of His countenance." In the latter, he summons his soul to the
exercise of the same hope and confidence; but he now can exult in the realized
possession of God's favor and love"—"WHO IS the health of my countenance."
No more, in the fifth verse he stops with the words, "my countenance;"
but in the closing verse, he adds the expression of appropriating faith
and triumphant assurance. It is the Key-stone of the arch. Two little words,
which, like the ciphers following the unit, give an augmented value to all
that goes before!—"MY GOD!" The two last divine expedients to which he had
resorted, (faith and prayer), have not been in vain. They have loaded the
cloud of mercy, and it bursts upon the suppliant in a shower of blessing!
The 22nd Psalm has been referred by commentators to this
same period of exile among the mountains of Gilead. There is much to confirm
this supposition in the general tone of the Psalm, as well as in its
incidental references. There is the same deep, anguished depression of
spirit—words, indeed, denoting such an intensity of sorrow, that, though
primarily applicable to David, we must look for their true exponent in the
case of a Greater Sufferer. The challenge, "Where is your God?" of the
42nd, seems echoed back in the 22nd by the mournful appeal, "My God, my
God, why have You forsaken me?"
But in the latter, as in the former, (before it closes,)
light breaks through the thick darkness. By a similar exercise of faith and
prayer, the Royal Mourner triumphs. "Deliver my soul," says he,
"from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's
mouth." (Ver. 20, 21.) The prayer is heard while he is yet speaking! At
this point of the Psalm, the language all at once passes from complaint into
exultation—from prayer into praise; and the voice of victory rises higher and
higher, until it reaches the close. God has taken off his sackcloth, and
girded him with gladness. He already anticipates the happy time when again he
shall be the leader of the festal throng on the heights of Zion. "You have
heard me," is his opening burst of triumph, "I will declare Your name
unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise You. My
praise shall be of You in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before
those who fear Him." (Psalm 22:21, 22, 25.)
No, further; what Psalm succeeds the 22nd? Is it mere
accidental arrangement which has given the beautiful 23rd (the best known and
loved of all David's Psalms) the immediate sequence? Is it a mere devout
imagination which leads us to regard it (from the place it occupies in the
Psalter) as the next his hand penned and his lips sung, after these plaintive
elegies? This Song of the chosen flock is not, as many think, the Psalm of his
boyhood, written in the days of his innocence, with his shepherd's crook and
harp, in the Valleys of Bethlehem. The imagery of the Psalm may indeed
have been taken from this sunny season of his youth. But, as it has been
suggested, the emblem may as likely have been borrowed from seeing a flock of
sheep in these grassy regions reposing by "green pastures" and "still
waters"—or, at other times, wending their way out of some "dark valley"—one,
perhaps a timid wanderer, clenched in the arms of the Shepherd, on his way
with it back to the fold!
We have witnessed, after a day of gloomy fog and rain and
thunder, the dense curtain that overhung the landscape rolling away—the clouds
break, gleaming vistas appear through their golden linings; and the rays of
the long-imprisoned sun shine down upon ten thousand sparkling pearls on grass
and flower. The choristers of wood and grove had until then been silent; but
now are they seen brushing the rain-drops from the branches, and filling the
air with their music, and all nature is glad again. So it is with the Great
Singer of Israel; so long as God's face is withdrawn, his wings are folded—his
melody hushed—his harp unstrung. But when the thundercloud has passed—when, as
the clear shining after rain, the longed-for countenance again breaks
forth—when, in answer to those prayers that were mightier than the armies of
Joab close by, his enemies are dispersed, and the way again open to a peaceful
return to his capital—may we not imagine the triumphant conqueror—strong in
the Lord, and in the power of His might—making the Gilead valleys resound with
the hymn of praise?—"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me
to lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters!"
(Psalm 23:1, 2.)
As he thought of all the trying discipline to which he had
been subjected to test his faith, drive him to prayer, and lead him to thirst
more ardently for "the living God," he could say in the retrospect, what he
was unable to do at the time—"He restores my soul: He leads me in the paths
of righteousness for His name's sake." (Psalm 23:3.) That path was a
rugged one—that trial a severe one—when he was found setting out barefoot, and
dim with tears, across Mount Olivet, compelled to take refuge beyond Jordan
amid the wilds of Bashan. But he acknowledges now that these were "paths of
righteousness." They were well and wisely ordered—the hand of his God had
appointed them. He can repeat with greater assurance his forbearing retort to
the curses of Shimei—"let him curse on, for the Lord has bidden him."
Moreover, all this wilderness-experience not only sustained
him in the present—it nerved him for the future. God's renewed faithfulness in
this trying hour was a pledge for all time to come. He had added another Mizar-hill
to former memorials of the Divine goodness. With the prospect, at his advanced
age, of the last and terminating trial of his pilgrimage, (the descent to the
deepest and gloomiest ravine of all,) he could, with his eye on the guiding
Shepherd, exclaim—"Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff
comfort me." (Psalm 23:4.) Even temporal mercies had been largely and
bountifully supplied him in the place of his exile. The powerful chiefs of the
Trans-jordanic tribes, as we previously observed—"Shobi of Ammon, and Machir,
and Barzillai of Manasseh,"—brought the rich produce of their fields and
pastures for the supply of himself and his army. He could say—"You have
prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies: You anoint my head
with oil; my cup runs over." (Psalm 23:5.)
And now, with the prospect before him of a joyful return to
his throne, and the still more joyous prospect of being a worshiper in God's
house on earth—the type of the better Temple in the skies—he can sing, as the
closing strain of his exile—"Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
(Psalm 23:6.)
Reader! is this your experience? Is this the result of your
temporal afflictions, the end of your spiritual conflicts—to lead you to the
same Shepherd of Israel, and to exult in Him as "the health of your
countenance, and your God?" Elimelech, of old, was compelled by famine to
leave Bethlehem, but his name signified, "My God is King!" When we are
pressed with straits, and troubles, and perplexities, let us make that
name our strong tower! "MY GOD IS KING," is a glorious motto. Is it the
heavings and convulsions of the world's nations—"kings of the earth setting
themselves, and rulers taking counsel together," from motives of personal
ambition, or political jealousy, or lust of conquest? Write upon all their
schemes, ELIMELECH—"My God is King!" Is it the apparently mysterious
discipline through which some may be passing—bereavements threatening your
dwelling, or the hand of death already on your loved ones? Write on the
darkened threshold, ELIMELECH—"My God is King!" Is it the prospect of
your own death that is filling you with apprehension? Remember in whose hands,
under whose sovereign control, that messenger is. Go to the vacant Sepulcher
at Golgotha, and read that writing and superscription which the "Abolisher of
death" has left for the comfort of all His people—"I have the keys of the
grave and of death." Christian! even here, in these gloomy regions,
"your God is King!"
How blessed thus to be able, both in temporal and spiritual
things, to lie in the arms of His mercy, saying, "God, undertake for us!"—to
feel that every thread in the web of life is woven by the Great Craftsman—that
not one movement in these swiftly darting shuttles is chance; but all is by
His direction, and all is to result in good! In having Himself as our
portion, we are independent of every other—we have the pledge of all other
blessings. "Let the moveables go, the inheritance is ours!" Let the streams
fail, we have the inexhaustible fountain! "Drop millions of gold," says good
Bishop Hopkins, "boundless revenues, ample territories, crowns and scepters,
and a poor contemptible worm lays his One God against them all."
"Our all," says Lady Powerscourt, "is but two mites (soul and body).
His all—Heaven, Earth, Eternity, Himself."
We have said in a previous chapter that the loftiest
archangel can tell of no mightier prerogative than looking up to the Great
Being before whom he casts his crown, and saying, "My God!" WE can utter them
in a sense higher than he. He is OUR God in Christ. The words to us are
written (which to the unredeemed angels they are not) in the blood of
atonement! Imagine, for a moment, a conversation between a bright angel in
heaven and a ransomed sinner from earth. The angel can point to a past
eternity; he can tell of a glorious pedigree; he can point up to his Almighty
Maker, and say, "He has been my God for ages and ages past. I have been
kept, supported, gladdened by His amazing mercy, long before the birth of time
or your world!" "True," we may imagine the redeemed and glorified sinner to
reply—"but I can tell of something more wondrous still. He is my God in
covenant! You are His by creation, but I am His also by adoption
and sonship. Though grace has kept you through these countless ages,
during which you have cast your crown at His feet, what is the grace
manifested to you, in comparison with the grace manifested to me!
Grace made you holy, and kept you holy; but grace found me on the brink of
despair, plucked me as a brand from the burning, brought me from the depths of
woe and degradation, to a throne and a crown! Your God has loved you.
My God has 'loved me' and GIVEN HIMSELF for me!"
And now we close our meditations on this beautiful and
instructive Psalm—a Psalm which, even since we have begun to write on it, we
have seen clung to as a treasured solace in hours of sickness—its sublime
utterances soothing the departing soul, just as it was pluming its wings for
flight to the spirit-world! Reader! in any future dark and troubled passages
in your life, you may well with comfort turn to this diary of an old
and tried saint, remembering that it records the experiences of "the man after
God's own heart." Tracing his footsteps and tear-drops along "the sands
of time," you shall cease to "think it strange concerning the fiery trials
that may be trying you, as though some strange thing happened." You will find
that "the same afflictions are accomplished in you," which have been
"accomplished" in the case of God's most favored servants in every age of the
Church. Do not expect now the unclouded day. That is not for earth, but
for heaven. God indeed, had He seen fit, might have ordained that your pathway
was to be without cloud or darkness, trial or tear—no poisoned darts, no
taunts, no ridicule, no cross, no "deep calling to deep,"—nothing but calm
seas unfretted by a ripple, sunny slopes and verdant valleys, and bright Mizar-hills
of love and faithfulness!
But to keep you humble, to teach you your dependence
on Himself—to make your present existence a state of discipline and probation,
He has ordered it otherwise. Your journey as travelers is through mist and
cloud-land—your voyage as seamen through alternate calm and storm. "Sometimes
I can rejoice in the Mount with my Redeemer. Sometimes I lie in the Valley,
dead, barren, unprofitable. I am frequently wounded in the battle. Blessed be
God that the Physician, the Castle, and the Fortress, are ever at hand."—Eickersteth
And much of that discipline, too, is mysterious. You
cannot discern its "why" and "wherefore." To employ a former symbol, you are
now like the vessel being built in the dockyard. The unskilled and uninitiated
can hear nothing but clanging hammers—they can see nothing but unshapely
timbers and glare of torches. It is a scene of din and noise, dust and
confusion. But all will at last be acknowledged as needed portions in the
spiritual workmanship—when the soul, released from its earthly fastenings, is
launched on the summer seas of eternity—
"Give to the winds your fears,
Hope and be undismayed.
God hears your sighs and counts your tears,
God shall lift up your head!
Through waves, and clouds, and storms,
He gently clears the way;
Wait on His time—so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day."
"David might have gone a thousand times to the tabernacle
and never found a thousandth part of the blessing he found in this wilderness.
It was in the absence of all that was dear to him as man, he found his special
solace in God." —Harington Evans.
Above all, let this Psalm teach you that your spiritual
interests are in safe keeping. No wounded Deer seeking the water-brooks
ever sought them in vain. When drooping, downcast, disconsolate yourself,
remember "God is faithful." "He cannot deny Himself." "He satisfies the
longing soul with goodness." None is "able to pluck you out of His hand."
There may be fluctuations—ebbings and flowings—in the tides of the soul; but
"He that has begun a good work in you, will carry it on until the day of
the Lord Jesus." You may reach the heavenly fold with bleating cries—with
torn fleece and bleeding feet—but you will reach it, if you have learned to
sing, "The Lord is my shepherd!" You may reach the water-brooks with
languid eye and panting sides—but you will reach them, if you can truthfully
say, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God!" You may begin your
song in the minor-key, but if "My GOD" be its keynote, you will finish it with
the angels and among ministering seraphim!
Go then, Christians! and, as you see what FAITH, and HOPE,
and PRAYER did for the Exile of Gilead, try what they can and will do
for you. With all your varied trials, with all your manifold sorrowful
experiences, who, after all (this Psalm seems to say) so favored as you?
Who possess your present exalted privileges?—who your elevating
hopes?—"the consciousness, even in your trials, that each billow is wafting
you nearer the haven of eternal rest?
"They saw the works of the Lord, his wonderful deeds in
the deep. For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves.
They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril
their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunken men; they
were at their wits' end. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and
he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the
waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided
them to their desired haven." Psalm 107:24-30
"Soul, then know your full salvation,
Rise over sin, and fear, and care,
Joy to find in every station
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within you,
Think what Father's smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to save thee—
Child of heaven! can you repine?
"Haste you on from grace to glory—
Armed by FAITH and winged by PRAYER;
Heaven's eternal days before thee,
God's own hand shall guide you there!
Soon shall close your earthly mission,
Soon shall pass your pilgrim days;
Hopes shall change to glad fruition,
FAITH to sight, and PRAYER to praise!"