Psalms 32:4

Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me.

Premens gravissima

“Premes gravissima. Sublevans suavissima et potentissima.” So wrote one of our shrewdest commentators about the hand of which the psalmist speaks, in words which may be freely translated, “The hand of God, whilst pressing very hard, supports with utmost tenderness and almighty power.”

I. creation. How beautifully are the two sides illustrated here. Tim schoolboy can tell us how the atmosphere is weighing upon the slenderest object on the earth’s surface with a constant pressure of many pounds to each square inch. The hand seen as “premeds gravissima.” Yet the dewdrop is not shattered, nor the harebell bruised, since the same hand is also “sublevans suavissima et potentissima.” Again, whilst with irresistible force all things are being dragged towards the earth’s centre, the insect with its gauzy wings poises itself in the liquid air, and the tiny child is unhindered in his play.

II. providence. Whatever page of history we study the same facts meet us,--on the one hand discipline and chastisement, disappointment, sorrow, pain, loss--the hand in ten thousand ways “premens gravissima”; on the other, the reaping of a compensating harvest of happy results, the hand “sublevans susvissima et potentissima.” Hers tribulation and anguish, there prosperity and peace; nations and individuals groaning beneath the weight of calamity, then led out into a wealthy place.

III. redemption. By redemption we mean the great process in all its parts by which the Father of Spirits is recovering man from spiritual ruin. Go back to the Fall. In the stern sentence passed on the first sinners, what do we see but the hand “premens”? in the primal promise what but the same hand “sublevans”? And in all that wonderful training, covering so many centuries and conducted in ways so surprising, by which the conscience of man was made alive to the guilt of sin--in all the work done by law--are we not looking at the hand of God as it descends upon the sinner, and makes him groan beneath the intolerable burden, as the psalmist did when “his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long,” and “his moisture was turned into the drought of summer”? And does not that hand become more and more visible as “sublevans suavissima et poten-tissima,” as mercy streams across the midnight sky in an ever-brightening track of blessed light, prophetic of the full glory of the dawn? (T. G. Rose.)

God’s hand

I. all afflictions are God’s hand.

1. They are from God’s hand purposing and ordaining them (Romans 8:29; 1 Thessalonians 3:3).

2. They are from God’s hand executing them (Isaiah 45:7; Genesis 45:8; Job 1:21; 2 Samuel 16:11; Hosea 6:1).

3. They are from God’s hand ordering and disposing them.

(1) In their causes, circumstances, kinds, manner, measure, and time of their beginning and ending.

(2) In their ends and issues, His own glory, in manifesting His mercy, justice, wisdom, power, etc. The everlasting salvation of His children. He stops them in their course of sin, as with a hedge of thorns (Hosea 2:6), that they should not break over into the pleasant pastures of sin, therein to be fatted to the slaughter. He brings them to a true hatred of sin, when they taste the bitter fruit of it. To the exercise of mortification, and desire of heaven and heavenly things: and thus they are judged of the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world.

II. God lays his hand heavily often upon his own dear children.

1. There is deep corruption lurking in the best, who not seldom are cast upon so deep a sleep of security that they cannot be wakened with a little shaking, till by most grievous afflictions the Lord break their bones, consume their strength, and bring them into such grief and pain as sets them roaring.

2. Smaller troubles have often a smaller work. Small things cannot make great hearts stoop; a small fire will not purge away dross from gold, but it must be quick and piercing; a small wind doth not fan away the chaff of vanity, a small correction or smart makes the child more froward, till sounder correction subdue him; small trials do not so exercise faith, nor send men out of themselves to God: for as none for the scratch of a pin, or a little headache, will seek to the physician or surgeon; so a sinner in smaller grievances of the soul will scarce think he needs go to God (Job 33:14).

3. The greater the affliction is, the more odious doth sin appear to be unto God; a strong poison must have a strong antidote: the more the godly are stricken down for sin, the more are they stirred up to godly sorrow, to hatred of it, to zeal against it, the better and more watchful do they prevent sin to come, and look better to themselves: as a good physician oftentimes letteth blood, not to make a man sick, but to prevent sickness.

4. The greater the trial is, the better experience have they of themselves.

5. God’s children have great afflictions, and are pressed with an heavy hand, that God Himself may be clearly seen to be their deliverer, when in the eyes of all flesh they are lost.

6. As great afflictions make way for abundant mercy from God to us, so also for abundant thanks from us to God. If one cure a trifling matter, it neither so binds the patient, nor yet commends the physician: but if any be cured of some deadly, and almost incurable disease, then we profess we could never have met with such a physician in all the world again, and we are accordingly thankful.

7. Were it not for great afflictions, we could never know the power of God’s Word in quickening us, cheering and comforting us in them, that it is the Word of Life, is most evidently seen in Death itself.

III. God lays his heavy hand upon his children a long time, and with much continuance.

1. Sometimes God’s children in their falls harden their hearts, and grow stiff in their sin, which was David’s case here, and then the Lord hardeneth Himself to grow stiff in displeasure. Oftentimes God’s children would sit silent, if the Lord would be as silent as they: but whom He loves, He will bring back the way that they are gone, and great hearts will not stoop for a little.

2. Christ hath not taken away the lingering of trials, but the malignity and poison of them; yea, Himself through all His life was a man full of sorrows; and we must not look to be better; He deserved them not, we have.

3. God would have us in the continuance of our trouble, to see the continuance of our sin; were our correction always short, we would not be persuaded of the greatness of our sins: plasters use to continue, and not fall off till the wound be cured.; and if a right use of afflictions were attained once, a joyful issue would soon follow: but some lust is not denied, and that adds a sting unto them.

4. God by the continuance of His hand would hold us in a continual exercise of grace, as of humility, faith, patience, prayer, repentance, etc., it being with a godly man, as one that hath a precious jewel, which he is careful to keep in his hand, so long as he watcheth, none can get it from him; but when he sleeps or slumbers, his hand opens, and it falls out, any man may have it. By continual blowing, the fire is kept in, but it dies by discontinuance. (T. Taylor, D. D.)