CONTENTS
This Psalm, as the title sets forth, is a Maschil, that is, a Psalm of
instruction. It contains, in an historical method of relation, God's
gracious dealings with Israel as a people. In reading it the believer
should have an eye to his own history, to mark the parallel between
Israel and h... [ Continue Reading ]
I beg the Reader's attention to what is here said, and, by way of
rightly explaining it, to turn to what our Lord himself saith; Matthew
13:34. Have we not authority from hence to believe, that what Asaph
saith in this Psalm, he delivers by the spirit of prophecy, as in the
person of Christ? And as... [ Continue Reading ]
Was not the gospel preached to our fathers in type and figure, as it
is now in sum and substance? See Hebrews 4:2; Galatians 3:8.... [ Continue Reading ]
How lovely is it to behold, even from the days of the patriarchs, the
care and attention with which the fathers handed down the testimony
they had received concerning the promised seed. Hence we find Abraham
telling Isaac, and Isaac Jacob, and Jacob, when dying, holding forth
to his children, the bl... [ Continue Reading ]
I venture to believe, contrary to the opinion of most commentators,
that the testimony in Jacob, and the law in Israel here spoken of, had
a reference to a much higher subject than the law on mount Sinai.
Surely that testimony and that law was Christ himself, who is both the
word and the testimony,... [ Continue Reading ]
We need only refer to the history of Israel in the wilderness, to
discover to what particular period of the church the prophet in these
verses refers. Perhaps, as in several other parts of scripture,
Ephraim, as one of the tribes of Israel, is put for the whole.
Jeremiah 31:20; Hosea 11:8. But when... [ Continue Reading ]
Here we have a full representation of Israel's unworthiness, as the
preceding verses gave us a short relation of God's mercy. Reader, had
you and I been present when, at the lifting up of the rod of Moses,
water issued from a dry unpromising rock, could we have thought it
possible that Israel would... [ Continue Reading ]
The history of this event is recorded at large, Numbers 11:1. But
beside the history, I earnestly beg the Reader to keep his eye
steadily upon the sacramental design of the whole. The despising here
spoken of, concerning Israel, is evidently the taking up slight views
of Christ. That portion of scri... [ Continue Reading ]
Our Lord's discourse (John 6:31) throws a complete light upon this
passage, considered with reference to the typical and sacramental
design of it, and plainly shows thy it was the slight that the
Israelites manifested by unbelief of God's method of salvation by
Christ, in which the greatness of thei... [ Continue Reading ]
What gracious instructions are read to us in these verses! See, my
soul, how unsuitable and self-destroying would prove thy desires in
numberless instances, if the Lord, in anger, granted them to thy
impatient request. And as in Israel of old, so in Israel now, if
chastisements do not soften and bri... [ Continue Reading ]
The history of Israel fully shows this. While under the divine
chastisements, oh! how seemingly earnest they sought the Lord: but
when the rod was taken off, they returned every man again to his evil
way. But, Reader, was Israel singular in this? Whose heart is free
from the same reproach? Precious... [ Continue Reading ]
What precious views are these of covenant love and covenant
faithfulness: and how they all run up to the fountain-head of all our
mercies, in the everlasting, free, spontaneous, and unchangeable love
of God in Christ to a nature like ours, that is crushed before the
moth!... [ Continue Reading ]
Here, by way of remembrance, the prophet carries back the subject to
the period of the church's deliverance at the time of the Egyptian
bondage, and gives some of the striking examples of the Lord's
dealings with their oppressors, by way of showing his mercy to them.
Reader, it is one of the most bl... [ Continue Reading ]
Here a sweet contrast is drawn, in the view of divine love and
compassion, notwithstanding human ingratitude. The sacred writer takes
up the subject in tracing the history of the church even into Canaan,
and shows that even here, in the land flowing with milk and honey, as
well as in a wilderness, a... [ Continue Reading ]
God may be said to hear when the cry of a sinful land comes up before
him for judgment. So in the case of Cain's murdering his brother: The
voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Genesis
4:10. And as in judgment, so in mercy; when the Lord would heal a
barren land, made barren... [ Continue Reading ]
The history of the church is pursued through all these verses. But we
must look farther than the history, and particularly in the close of
the Psalm, which ends with a view of David as the chosen of God to the
throne of Israel; behold the Christ, the chosen of God, of whom David
was a type, as set f... [ Continue Reading ]
REFLECTIONS
READER, let us make a solemn pause over the perusal of this most
interesting Psalm. And when we have taken a careful survey of its
precious contents, let us beg of God the Holy Ghost, the almighty
Author of it, to give us grace so to read, and so to improve it to our
own use and benefit... [ Continue Reading ]