Psalms 16:4

Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God.

The sorrows of idolaters

There is no other fact more incontrovertibly established than the fact that idolatry of every sort is a system of sorrows. Forsaking the one living and true God to serve other gods has written the scroll of human history, within and without, with mourning and lamentation and woe. The command, “Thou shalt have no other gods, but Me,” is a command grounded in the nature of things, and the necessities of the human soul. The human soul cannot have any other god without piercing itself through with many sorrows. The moment it adopts, as the object of its supreme love and adoration, any other being than the Lord God it begins to degenerate. The result is the same degeneracy where the attempt is made even to blend with the worship of the true God the worship of other beings. Saint worship has proved as disastrous to human progress as the worship of pagan gods and heroes. Italy has been as sadly degraded by papal as it ever was by pagan Rome. Jupiter, and Venus, and Bacchus, and Mars have only been displaced by saints as little entitled to our respect. It is only as the soul chooses for its worship an object of supreme excellence that it rises in the scale of moral and intellectual dignity. Such an object David’s soul had chosen as the God of its worship: “Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.” Drink offerings of wine were offered by the Israelites; but all such offerings of blood were forbidden them (Leviticus 17:9). The heathen, however, in their worship, both drank and offered blood. It will be recollected by the reader of history that Catiline pledged his accomplices in a goblet of blood, binding them by fearful oaths to the performance of fearful deeds, previous to explaining to them his plan for the massacre of the Roman senate and people. Hannibal, too, is said to have made a blood-drinking vow. We have read also of a tyrant who, piercing his enemies with hot irons, and gathering the blood in a cup as it flowed, drank one half of it, and offered up the other half to his god. These illustrations go to prove that worshipping other gods than the true God degrades men more and more, until the words “brute” and “fiend” are the only words that accurately describe him. (David Caldwell, A. M.)

The misery of idolatry

The Psalmist here introduces the subject of idolatry, and forms respecting it a worthy and decided resolution. He speaks of the misery of such as attach themselves to the worship and service of false gods. Not only shall they be subjected to calamity, but their calamities shall be manifold. This arises from two causes. The gods in whom they have placed their confidence are mere imaginary beings. And by forsaking the true God they have forfeited all the advantages which trust in Him and obedience to Him would have certainly produced. On account of the sinfulness and misery of such conduct the Psalmist determined that he should not be chargeable with it. True, we are not in danger of becoming idolaters in the literal and original sense of the word. But the substance of the crime is contained in your feeling and showing a stronger attachment to some other being than to the Supreme Being. It is of no consequence what it is to which you thus pay the homage and give the glory which are due to God alone. Idolatry is to serve the creature more than the Creator. Beware of the guilt of idolatry, and of the vengeance which impends over those who indulge in it. The Psalmist goes on to say, “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.” This refers both to the future life and to the present, “the life that now is.” In all that happens to us we will recognise the operation of His combined mercy and wisdom and faithfulness. Then our “lines will have fallen in pleasant places.” But our principal concern is with our spiritual circumstances. (A. Thomson, D. D.)