Gleanings in the Psalms

This sad complaint reads very little like a Song, nor can we conceive how it could be called by a name which denotes a song of praise or triumph; yet perhaps it was intentionally so called to show how faith “glories in tribulations also.” Assuredly, if ever there was a song of sorrow and a psalm of sadness, this is one. The sons of Korah who had often united in chanting jubilant odes, are now bidden to take charge of this mournful dirge-like hymn. Servants and singers must not be choosers.

This psalm stands alone in all the Psalter for the unrelieved gloom, the hopeless sorrow of its tone. Even the very saddest of the others, and the Lamentations themselves, admit some variations of key, some strains of hopefulness; here only all is darkness to the close.

The prophecy in the foregoing psalm of the conversion of all nations is followed by this Passion-Psalm, in order that it may never be forgotten that God has purchased to Himself a universal church by the precious blood of His dear Son.

All the misery and sorrow which are described in this Psalm, says Brentius, have been the lot of Christ’s people. We may therefore take the psalm, he adds, to be common to Christ and His church.

David was not the only man acquainted with sad exercise and affliction of spirit, for here is another, to wit, “Heman the Ezrahite”, as deep in trouble of spirit as he or any other beside. They are not all men of weak minds and shallow wits who are acquainted with trouble of spirit, and borne down with the sense of God’s wrath; for here is Heman, one amongst the wisest of all Israel, (and inferior to none for wisdom, except to Solomon alone), under the heaviest exercise we can imagine possible for a saint.

Verse 1. “O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee”. That little word “my” opens for a moment a space between the clouds through which the Sun of righteousness cast one solitary beam. Generally speaking, you will find that when a psalm begins with lamentations, it ends with praise; like the sun, which rising in clouds and mist, sets brightly, and darts forth its parting rays just before it goes down. But here the first gleam shoots across the sky just as the sun rises, and no sooner has the ray appeared, then thick clouds and darkness gather over it. The sun continues its course throughout the whole day enveloped in clouds and sets at last in a thicker bank of them than it ever had around it during the day. “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me. (In the last verse of the psalm) and mine acquaintance into darkness”. In what dark clouds does the sun of Haman the Ezrahite set!

Verse 2. “let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry”. “Let my prayer come before thee”; that is, as an ambassador is admitted into the presence of a King with his request and petition, let my prayer find an audience with Thee, O Lord my God. And then, having gained an audience, “Incline thine ear unto my cry” – hear the request and petition that my ambassador-prayer brings, and be pleased to grant me an answer in peace.

Verse 3. “For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave”. He felt as if he must die, indeed he thought himself half-dead already. All his life was going, his spiritual life declined, his mental life decayed, his bodily life flickered; he was nearer dead than alive. Some of us can enter into this experience, for many a time have we traversed this valley of death’s shade, ay and dwelt in it by the month as well. Really to die and be with Christ will be a gala day’s enjoyment compared with our misery when a worse than physical death has cast its dreadful shadow over us. O Lord be pleased to set free Thy prisoners of hope! Let none of Thy mourners imagine that a strange thing has happened, but rather rejoice to see the footprints of brethren who have trodden this desert before.

Verse 7. “Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves”. Now, seeing that so horrible a flood did not prevent the psalmist from lifting up his heart and prayers to God, we may learn by his example to cast the anchor of faith and prayer into heaven in all our shipwrecks.

(To be Continued)