Psalms 7:13

Psalms 7:13

I. Consider from this instance how often there lurk meanings of mercy and of love in the Psalms when upon the surface of them all seems to breathe (like Saul on the road to Damascus) of threatening and slaughter. For so it is in this verse that David only thought of the arrows of judgment and of wrath, but all the Christian commentators and preachers love rather to think of those arrows of conviction and love which God hath often discharged against the persecutors of His Church, and notably against Saul. When Jesus appeared to Saul, He did not say anything about arrows, but He did make mention of something similar. "It is hard for thee," He said (quoting a common proverb), "to kick out against the goads," as the stubborn oxen do when men would drive them to a quicker pace, and they, lashing out against the goads, only hurt themselves the worse. It is easy to see what these goads must have been. Many a time must Saul have felt in his inmost soul the bitter assurance that he was only doing the devil's work; yet he hardened himself, and stiffened his neck, and kicked out against the goads of conscience, and went on madly persecuting Jesus.

II. The great and obvious lesson of the text is that no persecutor will be allowed to proceed too far. In one way or other it will be said to him unmistakably, "Thus far shalt thou go, but no further." But there is a special triumph about the overthrow of Saul, because the arrow of conviction which struck him down was the arrow of the Lord's deliverance for him as well as for the Church; it delivered the brethren from grievous fear, but him from yet more grievous error. It was like the golden arrows of the rising sun, which pierce the stubborn darkness through and through, and change it into smiling day.

R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions,p. 75.

References: Psalms 7 J. Hammond, Expositor,1st series, vol. iv., p. 59; A. Maclaren, Life of David,p. 111; I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ,p. 160. Psalms 8:1. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. x., p. 207; A. Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 65.Psalms 8:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1545; S. Cox, An Expositor's Notebook,p. 131.