Psalms 55:22

Cast thy burthen upon the Lord— Cast thou thy cares and projects upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee, and bring them to perfection: He will not permit the righteous to be moved for ever. Chandler. The meaning of the word יהבךֶ iehabeka, seems to be, what is given us from God, our allotment: Compare 1 Peter 5:7.

REFLECTIONS on Psalms 55:12. Is it not a grief unto death, when a companion and friend is turned to an enemy? says the son of Sirach. There can be little question, that if a faithful friend be the medicine of life, the loss of such a cordial, or the absence of it, must prove the very bitterness of grief. Job himself was shaken, when he found that his familiar friends were not ashamed to make themselves strange to him; but his calamity was at the highest, and he knew not how to carry his complaint further, than that all his inward friends abhorred him, and they whom he loved were turned against him. Indeed, the distresses and dangers that we are subject to, are hardly remediable, except by God, when they, who by intimate conversation know our nature, and to whom we have communicated our counsels and designs, prove false to us, and concur with the malice of our enemies. When they instruct our adversaries, who are to treat with us, what advantage to make of our hopes and our fears, and of those infirmities of nature which none but our bosom-friends could discern; when, upon the information and advertisement they give as friends, they lead us to such and such conclusions and resolutions, and then betray those resolutions to them against whom they are taken; there can hardly be shelter from such treachery: we may very well lose our courage, and be even overwhelmed with the fear and horror of the danger which has encompassed us, unless remarkably supported by grace. As the danger is almost inevitable, so the grief which attends it is sharper and more troublesome than the danger. The discovered treachery of a friend does at once astonish all the faculties of the mind, and render them useless; and when we recover sense enough to find that we are hurt, and consider the hand which has done it, we are so confounded with grief, with sorrow and shame, and even with our own love and pity towards the apostates, that we can hardly think of the natural remedies and applications. David was so lost and confounded at the unkindness of Absalom's rebellion, that he could not compose himself to make any preparation or provision for resistance and opposition; and all his senses were so engrossed, and possessed with the agony and smart of his unnatural conduct, that he felt not the treason and malice of Shimei's reproaches, though he had made war with his hands, as well as his tongue, and threw stones at him as well as cursed him, 2 Samuel 16:11. Behold! my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may this Benjamite do it! let him alone, and let him curse, says the overwhelmed father, when he might have had justice done upon the profane and wicked captive. And we may very reasonably and safely believe, that our Saviour himself sustained much more trouble from the combination and treachery of Judas in the betraying him, than from all the indignities and violence offered to him by the Jews. The Scribes and Pharisees did like themselves, and like the persons they professed to be; and Pilate proceeded with as much tenderness, as was naturally to be expected: He would fain have found expedients to save him; and the people were madder, and more importunate for mischief, than they used to be:—But that a disciple, and an apostle,—one whom he had trusted above others, should contribute to, and contrive his destruction, gave him more than ordinary trouble: at the thoughts of it, He was troubled in Spirit, John 13:21. He knew the extreme grief it would occasion to all the rest of his disciples, who might reasonably suspect the faith of each other, and apprehend they might be all suspected by him, when one who had appeared as innocent and zealous as any, had been corrupted to so odious a perfidy—the mischief that we suffer by the treachery and falsehood of those we love, being commonly improved, and thereby made incurable, by our being jealous of every body, and thoroughly trusting none, after we have been so horribly abused by those whom we thought we might trust best, and with more security; and therefore confusion and ruin usually enter at those breaches. But our comfort is, though we are least able to help ourselves in such exigencies, and against such distresses, we have a Helper, if we call faithfully upon Him, who sees the pangs that we suffer, the agony and fear that we endure, and hears our lamentations.