Verse 1. “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.” The seventy-third psalm is a very striking record of the mental struggle which an eminently pious Jew underwent when he contemplated the respective conditions of the righteous and the wicked. Fresh from the conflict, he somewhat abruptly opens the psalm with the confident enunciation of the truth of which victory over doubt had now made him more and more intelligently sure than ever, that “God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.” And then he relates the most fatal shock which his faith had received, when he contrasted the prosperity of the wicked, who though they proudly contemned God and man, prospered in the world and increased in riches, with his own lot. Though he had cleansed his heart and washed his heart in innocency, he had been “plagued all the day long and chastened every morning.” The place where his doubts were removed and his tottering faith re-established, was “the sanctuary of God,” and God Himself was his teacher.
Thomas Perowne
Verse 2. “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.” Let those who fear God and who are beginning to look aside on the things of this world, bear in mind that it will be hard, even for them, to hold out in faith and in the fear of God in a time of trial. Remember the example of David. He was a man that had spent much time travelling towards heaven; yet, looking but a little aside on the glittering show of this world, had very near lost his way – his feet were almost gone, his steps had well nigh slipped.
Edward Elton
Verse 2. “... my feet were almost gone ...” And what was it that kept him from entirely slipping away and being lost in perdition? It was the restraining and restoring grace of his God in his life. As old John Hooper the martyr said, almost four-hundred-and fifty years ago, “Here is the presence, providence, strength, safeguard, and keeping of man by Almighty God, marvellously set forth.” Does such grace, then, lead to presumption and careless living? No! Presumption and careless living denies the existence of such grace. “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall.”
Verse 3. “For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” The sneering jest of Dionysius the younger, when he had plundered the Temple of Syracuse, is well-known. “See you not,” says he to those that were with him, “how the gods favour the sacrilegious?” In the same way the prosperity of the wicked is taken as an encouragement to commit sin; for we are ready to imagine that, since God grants them so much of the good things of this life, they are the objects of His approbation and favour. We see how their prosperous condition wounded David to the heart, leading him almost to think that there was nothing better for him than to join himself to their company and to follow their course of life.
John Calvin
Verse 3. “For I was envious at the foolish ...” Who would envy a malefactor going up a high ladder, and being mounted above the rest of the people, when it is only for a little time and in order that he might be hanged? That is just the case of wicked men who are mounted up high in prosperity, only that they might be cast down deeper into destruction. Who would have envied the beasts of old the garlands and ribbons with which the heathen adorned them when they went to be sacrificed?
John Willison
Verse 4. “For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.” But men may die like lambs, and yet have their place for ever with the goats.
Matthew Henry
Verse 6. “Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain ...” A young minister, addressing a rather fashionable audience, attacked their pride and extravagance, as seen in their ribbons, ruffles, chains and jewels. In the afternoon, an old minister preached powerfully on the corruption of human nature, the enmity of the soul towards God, and the necessity for a new heart. In the evening as they sat together in private, the young minister asked the older man, “Why do you not preach against the vanity and pride of the people for dressing so extravagantly?” “Ah, son Timothy,” he replied, “while you are trimming off the top and branches of the trees, I am endeavouring to cut it up by the roots, and then the whole top must die.”
From the Religious Tract Society
Verse 6. “Therefore pride ...” Pride thrust Nebuchadnezzar out of men's society, Saul out of his kingdom, Haman out of the court, Adam out of paradise, and Lucifer out of Heaven.
Thomas Adams
(To be continued)